


Attack of the 46 inch Winchester

by aLoggedInReader



Series: 46 Series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 49,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3307688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aLoggedInReader/pseuds/aLoggedInReader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is determined not to get caught up in the entire Apocalypse business. When Castiel shows up on his doorstep, begging him to play babysitter for a newly de-aged Sam and Dean, he changes his mind pretty quickly, though. There is no chance that this will turn out anything but hilarious after all, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Treeni for beta-reading and to monsterattheendofthisbook for creating the banner for the story!

****

 

**1**

 

It was a very little known fact that Castiel had never lost contact to Gabriel after the entire TV-land fiasco. In fact, the seraph had been back in the warehouse even before the sprinkler system had managed to extinguish the flames of holy oil; both holy fire and Castiel could be persistent like that.

To the angel’s credit, he had acknowledged that his older brother refused to get caught up in the entire Apocalypse business, but he had insisted on wanting a way to get into contact with Gabriel again, if anything new and possibly mind-changing came up. The archangel had agreed, if only – or mostly – because Castiel’s courage was rather admirable. Not to mention that he could very easily ditch the tracking device – a stone with the required Enochian symbols on it – if he ever changed his mind or if Castiel wanted to chat too often for his liking.

Of course, it wasn’t even a month before the seraph stood in front of his door, metaphorically spoken. It didn’t seem like he even knew what doors were for and didn’t understand that it was common courtesy to wait outside until you were asked to come inside.

“I require your assistance!” Castiel stated in the way of greeting, cementing the archangel’s belief that his brother was both socially awkward and terribly rude once and for all.

Really, who just popped into their relative’s flat without any sort of warning? An hour earlier and the strippers Gabriel had snapped into existence would have still been there for crying out loud! Not that the archangel would have cared too much about his brother walking in. People who didn’t know how to knock deserved all the mental scaring they got, in his opinion.

“’Course you do,” Gabriel replied, throwing his arms in the air showily which seemed to confuse his brother instead of letting him know that he was disturbing the archangel’s daily milkshake feast and was walking on thin ice, “I’m awesome like that.”  
That he was only crossing his arms in front of his chest instead of snapping his fingers to send the seraph to some undisclosed location of his choosing showed that he at least had some manners. It also showed that he was slightly curious to hear what exactly the little one thought was important enough to risk annoying him into breaking off all contact again. Okay, he wasn’t all too tempted to go that far, even if Castiel should overstep some boundaries, but the other man didn’t know that.

“This is no laughing matter!” the dark-haired angel insisted in a slightly frustrated tone, “An unknown force has worked a spell over Dean and Sam. They have both been transformed into a prepubescent state.”

To make matters worse Castiel had only arrived in time to grab both Winchesters and get them to a safe place, but not in time to see what had actually happened. All he knew was that someone had done something that had altered their usual appearance and personalities considerably.

“What do you mean ‘this is no laughing matter’? It’s freaking hilarious!” Gabriel laughed, plopping down into his sixties style wingchair. He didn’t have enough information to picture what dumb and dumber would look like that very moment, but every option he could come up with was funnier than the last.

“Brother, I am begging you, they are completely defenseless!” Castiel pleaded with the archangel. Surely, Gabriel would have to see how serious the situation was. The Winchesters were much to open to attack as things were! If Heaven and Hell got their hands on them, it would be much too easy to trick them into giving their consent to being the vessels for Michael and Lucifer, as well. While it was questionable at best that Gabriel would lift a finger to prevent that from happening, even the archangel had to see that the circumstances were simply wrong.

“Damn straight they are, you left the kiddies all on their own somewhere,” Gabriel chuckled, snapping once to conjure up a cherry flavored lollipop. “Hate to break it to you, Cassy, but you’re not a particularly good babysitter,” he added, his words slightly muffled because of the sweet treat.

Oh, the archangel understood what his little brother wanted from him perfectly, but he wasn’t terribly inclined to give in just like that. He was however inclined to see the miniature Winchesters for himself, not that he would let Castiel know that getting involved in this a little would actually please him.

“I have already said that I require your assistance,” the dark-haired angel repeated, obviously thinking that he had made his point, but his older brother liked to see him squirm a little too much.

“I have left them in the All Tucked Inn motel in Delaware,” Castiel added, fixing his baby blue and thoroughly pleading eyes on his brother’s golden ones, “Dean assured me that they would be fine on their own as long as I allowed them to watch television and left them some quarters.”

The angel hadn’t liked the idea of leaving his two charges behind in their state, but taking them along would not have been the best idea, either. Luckily, the older Winchester had been positive that nothing could go wrong, if he simply provided them with some entertainment and made them promise not to leave the room before he returned. He had not exactly seen the point in getting both children to promise something to him after they had told him that he would have to make them promise themselves, but since Sam had also agreed that it was vital he had accepted it as part of a necessary ritual.

“I bet he did,” Gabriel snorted, shaking his head. He was pretty sure that the Winchesters hadn’t only been shrunken down but that their minds were matching their current form as well. Going only by what Castiel had told him, Dean might still have been his usual self, however. It just proved that the older Winchester had hardly matured since his childhood.

“I can only beg you again,” Castiel repeated, ducking his head slightly in a show of respect and submissiveness. He might not understand most of the pop-culture references Dean and Gabriel were so fond of and sometimes strange sayings confused him, but nobody could say that he wasn’t observant and so he had had no troubles noticing that his older brother was intrigued at least.

“You’ll owe me big time, Castiel!” Gabriel stated seriously. The seraph wasn’t only asking him to babysit two shrunken hunters, he also asked him to put the entire Apocalypse business aside and worst of all he also asked him to not abuse the situation for all it was worth!

Castiel nodded gravely. If he had seen any other option, he would have used it, but Bobby Singer’s house was the place everyone would think to look for them first and it was unclear how the older hunter would fare against an unknown enemy while protecting two children and god help them if Michael or Lucifer got wind. There was no one else the seraph could trust and who was able to protect the humans from basically anything and everything. Gabriel might not have looked like the obvious choice from the outside, but that was one of the reasons why he was perfect for the job. The most important one was that nobody knew that the archangel was involved with anything in the first place, of course.

“This ought to be so much fun,” Gabriel smirked just before he disappeared into thin air. The slightly panicky look on his younger brother’s face was the cherry on top of the cake.

 

* * *

 

“Leave me alone, Dean!” an awfully young sounding voice complained loud enough that Gabriel wouldn’t have had to be an archangel to hear it from where he was standing in front of their hotel room door.

Castiel hadn’t told him what room number the two Weechesters had, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out that they were in the one room that was warded heavily. Their loud squabbling had helped as well, of course.

“I’m not doing nothing,” Dean insisted in the petulant voice only pre-teens could handle. Not that teenagers were any less petulant, they just tended to have deeper voices.

“That’s a double negative!” Sam pointed out with a huff. Judged by the sounds that came next their brotherly fight had just taken a turn for the more physical. The way the younger younger Winchester squeaked “Stop it!” was a good indication for that, too.

“I’m not even touching you, Sammy,” his brother claimed in a through and through smug voice, “See, not touching you!”

“Dean!” Sam yelled, stretching the other boy’s name for all it was worth.

As much fun as listening to them going on and on had been, Gabriel still decided that it was high time he got involved into this. He couldn’t promise that he’d keep them from arguing on, but he wanted to have the visuals to the sound for sure!

The archangel shook his head in amusement and raised his arm to knock on the door. It took two tries before the brats even heard him over the sound of their quarrelling.

“Who the hell is there?” Dean asked, shushing his brother and trying to make his voice sound deeper and more adult. Apparently, he had some understanding of the dangers two kids alone in a pretty run down motel could face. It would be interesting to find out what exactly they did and didn’t know, anyway.

“The pizza man,” Gabriel replied just for the heck of it.

Looking at how the older Winchester nearly immediately opened the door just a little after that announcement spoke for them not remembering anything much about angels, demons and other monsters. Then again, most of those wouldn’t impersonate a pizza delivery person to get to them. Gabriel refused to think that his brothers or their mortal enemies had sunk that low when it came to the Winchesters. Then again, if word got out that someone had turned them into children…

“Who the fuck are you?” Dean wanted to know, peeking through the door he had opened only wide enough to be able to look outside. His brother was still completely shielded from view as things were. Some things just didn’t change, apparently.

“You realize that you don’t need to curse in every sentence, right?” the archangel countered not even trying to sound reprimanding. Dean Winchester technically was thirty years old, after all. He could curse all he wanted. And even if he had been the age he looked – roughly twelve years old – Gabriel wouldn’t have been the one to tell him to watch the language. He might have agreed to babysit, being a good responsible adult was another thing entirely.

“Whatever,” the older Winchester huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “Where’s the pizza?”

Gabriel began to understand why Castiel had been so worried. Once Dean Winchester stopped being concerned with ‘stranger danger’ for the most part team free will was pretty much screwed. They could hardly count on Sam in that respect. It was a fair shot to say the younger Winchester had never been concerned enough with stuff like that to begin with, if the entire disaster with Ruby was any indication.

“I don’t want pizza, Dean! You promised I could have chicken nuggets!” Sam finally protested, pulling on his older brother’s shirt to catch his attention. That was how Gabriel caught his first glimpse of an even more considerably shrunken down Sam Winchester. Damn, even for an eight year old – give or take a few months – he was pretty damn short!

“For the love of all that’s holy, what do they feed you, kid?” the archangel exclaimed before he could stop himself, “You’re so… short!”

Sam frowned deeply, obviously trying to hide his wobbly lip. Gabriel, honest to God, hadn’t meant to hurt the kid’s feelings, but it was pretty easy to see that he had done exactly that. Dean’s loud laughter didn’t help, either.

“Okay, short version,” the archangel started to speak again when an inconveniently placed pause intensified the wobbling in the younger boy’s lip and the amusement in his brother’s face. It surely hadn’t helped that the angel hadn’t been able to stop himself from throwing a side glance toward Sam, either.

“Castiel asked me to look after the two of you,” Gabriel explained quickly, trying to distract Sam from getting all gloomy and Dean from having too much fun at his brother’s expenses. Hell, two minutes of this and already he was starting to be more responsible than he thought he would be! “And now you two get your jackets and we go and get your chicken nuggets.”

The mention of the dark-haired angel’s name was enough to prompt them both to do as he had suggested which again was a good sign for how screwed they would have been had anyone else stood in front of their door. Gabriel still vowed to keep away from the entire Apocalypse business, but he had to admit that Castiel had been right. Using the brothers’ current predicament against them was plain wrong. So yeah, as long as the two of them were half a Winchester each, he’d keep them out of all types of troubles. All kinds of trouble that had anything to do with the Apocalypse at least.V


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

 

„They have ten different burgers,“ Gabriel pointed out to a pouting Dean. Not that the twelve year old would ever admit that he was pouting. However there was no better word to describe how his lower lip was sticking out while he had his arms crossed in front of his chest, looking at the archangel through narrowed eyes. Really, what was up with that? Dean Winchester was all for heart attacks waiting to happen in burger form as Gabriel knew all too well.

“Whatever! I wanted that pizza!” the older Winchester stated, trying to keep the whine out of his voice as much as possible. Whining was for babies, after all. He was simply complaining which was how adults showed what they wanted.

“Tough break kid, they don’t have pizza. Eat something else!” Gabriel remarked dismissively. If he felt like being fair he’d make it Dean’s turn to decide what they were getting or where they were going the next time. Given there was a next time, of course. There was no way to tell how quickly Castiel would come up with a solution for their current problem, after all.

“At least we know what you want,” the archangel added, looking over to the younger Winchester who had chosen to sit next to him in the booth and across from his brother. Not that he really had had much of a choice since Dean had simply parked his butt on the one side and had refused to scoot over for his little brother. Apparently, the twelve year old could be quite bratty like that.

What Gabriel didn’t know was that sitting across from Sam made it easier for Dean to keep a close eye on what his brother was doing and he also hadn’t noticed that the older kid had chosen to sit so he was facing the door and could watch out for strangers. Strangers that weren’t meant to be their babysitters that was. For some reason Dean couldn’t have explained, even if he had actually been given the time to think about it, he trusted Castiel completely and Cas had said that he was going to send them someone who was meant to look after them, so that was okay. Even if Gabriel had promised him pizza and then hadn’t delivered.

“What now?” Gabriel asked when the younger Winchester started to fidget with a napkin, looking at him with a slightly guilty expression.

“The chicken nuggets come with fries,” Sam mumbled, as if he didn’t really want the archangel to hear what he was saying. They had already gone out to find a diner that served the meal he had wanted, so he didn’t want to cause any more inconveniences, but at the same time the situation with the fries was bothering him and he had never been good at holding back about things he didn’t like.

“So?” the archangel frowned deeply, trying and failing to see the problem with that.

“I want veggies,” the younger Winchester explained with a long-suffering sigh. It wasn’t like he got what he wanted all that often, but the adult had asked so he had told him what the matter was. Not that he expected anything to be done about it.

“Yeah, you’ll always be a pipsqueak if you don’t eat your veggies!” Dean pointed out completely unhelpfully, smirking gleefully as he nodded toward Gabriel and added, “He never ate his!”

The archangel was somewhat tempted to give the pre-teen a bad case of lice for that one, but chose not to do it in the end. He had no doubt that he hadn’t seen the worst Dean was capable of yet, so keeping the more harmless punishments he could think of for the time when the kid really started to grate on his nerves seemed like the better choice.Even if he did deserve a good swat for that stupid comment.

“Father, I know I’ve done a lot of things that probably made you want to bend me over your knee, but do I really deserve this?” Gabriel muttered half-heartedly. God had nothing to do with their situation and the archangel knew it. Also - and he couldn’t stress this point enough - he surely hadn’t seen the worst the pre-teen and his younger brother were capable of, yet.

“Who are you talking to, Mr. Gabriel?” Sam asked curiously, pulling on the sleeve of his olive green jacket.

“Nobody,” the archangel replied with a shrug, giving the younger Winchester a nice smile. He’d have to be a bit more careful about saying anything randomly while the curious Weechester was around, if he didn’t want to explain, at least. It was quite obvious that Sam wasn’t very content with the answer he had gotten, but he apparently thought that the matter wasn’t worth pursuing.

“Oh great, he’s a nutjob,” Dean commented, rolling his eyes showily, “Where is Cas, anyway?”

“Hiding from your very unique charm, Dean-o,” Gabriel snorted. Predictably Sam was highly amused by his older brother being the butt of the joke. The giggling came to an abrupt stop when Dean kicked his little brother’s shin under the table. The older Winchester didn’t even get the chance to look all too smug before he was kicked back with enough force to make the cutlery rattle on the table.

“Stop it! Both of you!” Gabriel exclaimed, sounding by far too close to some parents he had played tricks on in the past for his liking.

Luckily the waitress came back with their drinks that moment and both Sam and Dean seemed to decide at the same time that they would behave for that adult. Gabriel would have felt a little offended, if he hadn’t been quite happy with them just sitting there quietly. Besides, he had to admit that their blonde waitress with her quite prominent D-cup would have distracted him from any squabble he might have had with one of his brothers, too. Sam probably was too far from puberty to appreciate Viola’s assets, but Dean apparently was close enough to ball dropping territory to spend some extra time pretending to read her conveniently placed name tag.

“He’ll have the chicken nuggets, but make that whatever healthy and growth supporting vegetables you have instead of the fries,” Gabriel ordered their meals, “A bacon cheeseburger with extra fries for brat number two and the biggest slice of chocolate cake you have for me.”

The waitress looked a little perplexed by his choice of words for a moment, but with the charming smile he had plastered on his face especially for her, she figured that he was just joking which was at least partly true. The two kids were sort of bratty, but they actually weren’t bad enough to be called such in public, so he had been exaggerating for sure.

“Just eating dessert was an option? Why did nobody tell me what was an option?” Dean complained, looking like someone had just kicked his puppy as soon as he was done looking after Viola’s retreating form, “They have pie. I could have gotten an entire pie!”

Dammit, he didn’t even get an entire pie just for himself for his birthdays. This would have been his chance! The older Winchester vowed to try and order at least a slice of pie later, anyway. It didn’t seem so unlikely that the adult would let him get away with it. Hell, both adults they had had to deal with today seemed much more easygoing than their dad usually was. Cas had given him enough quarters to keep the magic fingers going for hours just because he had told him to and Gabriel had taken them out to a diner after Sam had demanded his chicken nuggets.

“It’s not healthy, Dean,” the younger kid stated in a snotty tone, adding in a mumble, “Your cheeseburger isn’t, either.”

He could hardly protest against the burgers his older brother liked so much, because not eating at all wasn’t healthy either. Besides, their dad took them to burger joints quite often and he knew what was good for them. In the very least he got tired of Sam’s complaining very quickly, so it wasn’t that much of a good idea to be a total smartass about stuff like that when their dad was listening. Things seemed to be a little different with their current babysitter, however.

“Listen to your brother. You kids need to eat the reasonable and healthy stuff,” Gabriel agreed with a slight grin, reaching for the chocolate milkshake he had ordered earlier, “I’m not going to grow anymore, anyway.”

Dean of course wasn’t exactly happy about being told to listen to his little brother of all people. Sam enjoyed hearing the adult agreeing with him, of course. In fact it was the moment the younger Winchester decided that he really liked Gabriel.

“Imagine how tall you might’ve gotten, if you had eaten your veggies!” the younger Winchester exclaimed enthusiastically, loving the positive feedback the archangel had given him.

Gabriel couldn’t help laughing at the way Sam’s eyes lit up with the thought of how tall someone could get simply from eating the right things. The archangel ruffled the kid’s hair affectionately, ignoring his pout and groan of protest.

“Just you watch, kiddo, one day you’ll be taller than big bro,” the archangel nodded to himself. Yes, he knew he was annoying Dean when he said things like that, but he had always liked picking on the older Winchester. Okay, he had enjoyed picking on the younger brother too, but as things were he was just a little kid and a rather adorable one at that, if Gabriel allowed himself the thought. The big hazel eyes and the floppy hair made Sam look rather cute, while Dean was in the awkward transitory stage where he was too old to be cute and too young to be anything else. Alright, he probably was cute as well when he wasn’t being bratty. It was an unproven theory this far, however. Not to mention that the kid would hardly like to hear anything of that. Men were not cute in the older Winchester’s mind!

“Never!” Dean stated with conviction, “Little brothers need to stay little, it’s only natural!”

Gabriel used the few moments the older Winchester was distracted by the reappearance of their waitress to turn toward Sam and mouth ‘Just you wait a few years’ which immediately made the younger boy giggle again. Yeah, he was quite the adorable kid.

After the first few bites Dean gave up on pretending that he wasn’t completely happy with his bacon cheeseburger and so they managed to have a mostly quiet, but nice meal. Both Sam and Dean kept eying him as he devoured the chocolate cake he had ordered for different reasons. The younger one of the two seemed somewhat disapproving while the older brother looked a little jealous still.

“Alright, Dean-o, knock yourself out,” Gabriel said after they had finished their meals, pushing the menu into the pre-teen’s hands, “Choose a pie for us to take back to the motel.”

The older Winchester completely forgot to point out how nobody but his father – and sometimes maybe Sammy – was allowed to call him by any nicknames over his enthusiastic search for the perfect pie to take away with them. Of course, it was only fair that he got to choose the pie when Sam had dictated where they were going to eat, but life wasn’t always – if ever - fair, so it was still special to him.

The cherry pie Dean was carrying kept him stupidly happy nearly all the way back to the motel while Sam was walking next to Gabriel quietly. Unfortunately something both Winchesters hadn’t noticed before caught their eye once they got close enough to get a good view of the motel parking lot.

“Dad!” the eight year old yelled the moment he saw the Impala. He forgot all about his weariness as he started to sprint toward their room, his older brother a few steps ahead of him.

The archangel decided to follow them slowly to give himself a few more moments to come up with an explanation the children were going to buy without further questions. By the time he followed them into the room that Dean had hurriedly unlocked with the key he had been allowed to carry the two of them had already realized that their father was nowhere to be found.

“Your dad left the car here, because it was making strange noises and he didn’t want to risk it breaking down on the way.” Gabriel shrugged, trying to ignore how disappointed yet resigned both boys looked, “He borrowed Cas’ for now.”

Apparently, neither one of the boys cared much for the explanation, however. Dean put the pie on the table and turned away as if he had lost all interest in it, while Sam plopped down on the bed the furthest from the door belly first, trying not to show how close he was to crying.

“Oh, c’mon guys, you two just get washed up and into your pajamas and then we can watch a movie,” Gabriel suggested cheerily with a forced grin, pointedly ignoring the slight heartache the scene he had just witnessed caused him.

“Whatever,” Dean muttered, banging the bathroom door behind him.

As things were the archangel had two emotionally hurt children on his hands and the motel room they were in was just this side of being called a rat’s nest. It looked like they had a really promising evening together ahead of them.


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

 

It had been convenient that the Winchesters’ normal clothes had been turned smaller along with them. However, a quick look around the motel room had confirmed that none of the things they were not wearing at the time had gotten the same treatment; just as Gabriel had expected. Luckily, replacing the brothers’ things with more age appropriate ones didn’t exactly pose a problem to the archangel. Feeling a little more benevolent than usually, he had made sure that there were a few comic books in Sam’s duffel bag along with a couple sets of clothes. He had also bestowed the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated upon Dean just so nobody could claim that he was showing favoritism toward the younger brother.

The rickety motel couch was exactly as comfortable as it looked which meant that sitting on the floor might have been preferable. There might have been less questionable stains on the carpet under the couch, in fact. Looking at how the boys just plopped down on it without any sort of comment made Gabriel consider that he was just spoiled for a moment. The sad truth probably was that the Winchesters simply were all too used to things like that, however.

The archangel shook the thought off and reached for the remote control he had willed into existence when he had noticed that the one that should have been there had either been stolen or confiscated by the motel staff to prevent anyone from stealing it. How he was going to spend a night in the rat’s nest of a motel room without getting to the point where the urge to smite the one responsible for all the shortcomings he had noticed this far was getting overwhelming he wasn’t sure yet.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Dean suddenly exclaimed excitedly, practically throwing himself at Gabriel in complete disregard of his younger brother sitting between them to get hold of the remote control and keep the adult from switching channels, “Awesome!”

Sam immediately started to struggle, hitting every part of Dean’s upper body he could reach to get his brother to move away from him again. The other boy of course retaliated immediately, like the mature preteen he was, instead of simply getting back to his sitting spot and ending the conflict that way. Their little play fight wouldn’t have bothered Gabriel too much, if it wasn’t for the fact that it brought the couch to the very edge of what it was able to take.

“If the couch breaks down because of you two, I swear-“ the archangel started in a threatening tone. He honestly hadn’t meant to come across as angry as he had, he simply wasn’t used to how sensitive children’s feelings could be. Gabriel immediately stopped speaking when he realized that both kids were looking at him with big eyes, like they fully expected him to really get angry with them. In that moment, it was all too easy to forget that the Winchesters were the bane in the existence of demons, monsters and angels alike.

It only took a moment for Dean to switch back to his petulant behavior, pressing his lips into a thin line and staring at the TV screen with a muttered “Whatever”. He was keeping his little brother noticeably closer to his side, however.

Sam was watching the movie just as intently for all it looked like. He kept stealing nervous glances toward Gabriel from under his bangs as if he was trying to figure out if the adult was still going to blow up in their faces, though.

The archangel left his place on the couch and subsequently the motel room under the watchful eyes of both children. Once outside he allowed himself a deep groan and somewhat spastic shaking of his fists toward the heavens. All this was much more complicated and by far less amusing than it had any right to be! He’d give Castiel an earful about that once the seraph returned, as well. The bastard was the reason why he was in this impossible situation to begin with!

He punched the buttons on the soda machine with much more force than strictly necessary which didn’t do much to lighten his mood, and grabbed three cans of Pepsi before he returned to his Winchester watching duties.

“Hey Dean-o, Sam-alam,” Gabriel called just a moment before he tossed a can to each one of them, giving them a half-smile. “How about that pie now?”

The older Winchester looked suspicious for which the archangel couldn’t even blame him, but it was easy to see that the prospect of pie got him excited again. Gabriel nodded to himself contently as he got the container and two forks for the kids. They were getting this back on track. Those two would have to deal with two archangels trying to ride their asses to bring on the end of the world again soon enough; they could have one nice evening as blissfully ignorant children before that!

It took a while before the archangel realized that only Dean was stuffing his face with pie while his little brother was holding his still unopened can of Pepsi and the fork between his hands. If he had felt like giving Spielberg and Lucas a lot of credit, Gabriel would have said that Sam was just too engrossed by the movie to bother with the snacks, but he somehow didn’t believe that that was the issue here.

The archangel reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took a package of microwavable popcorn out, wiggling it in front of the younger Winchester’s face. Maybe the kid could be convinced into a salty treat instead of a sweet one.

“Do you always have popcorn in your jacket?” Sam asked, tilting his head slightly. It seemed like a strange thing to carry around all day long, on the off chance of needing it. Then again, people had stranger things on them and it somehow fit in with everything they had seen of the adult very well.

“Sure,” Gabriel replied with a grin, ruffling the boy’s hair before he went to throw the bag into the microwave, “Always take the essentials everywhere, young Winchester.”

Miraculously, the microwave worked without angelic assistance, even though it made strange noises and could have done with a good cleaning.

Interestingly enough, Sam looked much more interested in the bag of popcorn, but he didn’t reach for it even after the archangel had started to eat. Being a heavenly being meant that Gabriel didn’t have to count calories to keep in shape. Obviously this didn’t apply to the younger Winchester and looking at what he usually looked like, it wasn’t that unlikely that he had to be somewhat obsessed with his calorie intake. However, as things were he was only eight years old for crying out loud!

“I already brushed my teeth,” Sam finally mumbled the explanation for his behavior.

Gabriel nearly laughed at that. The truth was much simpler and less worrying than what he had come up with. At least in that respect the younger Winchester was just a normal kid. A normal kid who had listened a little too well to the oral hygiene part of health class.

“Brush them again later, kiddo,” the archangel suggested, bringing the open bag right under Sam’s nose and shaking it a little to make sure he was hit by the smell of fresh popcorn full force. It wasn’t long before the younger Winchester started to munch away happily as well after that.

“They wanted to film a fight scene there, but then Harrison Ford got sick, so they let him shoot the guy instead,” Sam explained matter-of-factly, nodding toward the TV where one of the bad guys had just tried to intimidate the hero by jumping around and presenting his swords ending with Indiana Jones casually shooting him.

“’S cooler that way,” Dean replied around a mouthful of pie, prompting his younger brother to pull a disgusted face at him. The older Winchester really wasn’t impressed, though. The pie was damned good and for the moment nobody else wanted any, meaning he had it all for himself!

So, both boys were happy with their choice of movie and snacks, nobody was getting kicked and it was just about bedtime. All in all the evening had turned out better than the archangel had thought it would at the start.

Once Sam had returned from brushing his teeth for the second time, something Dean had gladly skipped, Gabriel was faced with another issue he really hadn’t thought would come up. Sure, the brothers were incredibly close, probably closer than was healthy for them, but the fact that they were apparently sleeping in one bed came as a big surprise to the archangel.

The younger Winchester had headed straight for the bed his brother was already lying in, however. He was only just crawling under the blanket when Gabriel cleared his throat noisily, trying and failing to come up with the fitting words for the awkward situation that had presented itself. Alright, he could have come up with a lot of things to say, but he didn’t want to ruin the amicable and actually pretty good mood the two boys had been in. It was an ultimate truth of his existence that he often blurted out the next best thing on his mind, if he held back for too long. However, the next best thing usually had very little to do with the actual best thing to say. “Looks to me like that bunk is already taken, Sambo.”

“There’s two beds and three of us, genius,” Dean huffed, glaring at the archangel, “And I’m not sleeping on that shitty couch.”

The thing might have been bearable to sit on, but there was no way he was going to spend the entire night on it! Even sharing a bed with his younger brother was more comfortable than that, thank you very much.

“Neither is Sammy,” the older Winchester added a moment later, wrapping his arms around his brother as if to protect him from anyone dragging him out of the relatively comfortable bed and over to the shabby couch. Actually, he was protecting him from someone only suggesting that he might sleep anywhere than where he currently was with the gesture, as well.

“I will,” Gabriel stated nonchalantly. There really was no use making an even bigger deal out of this. They were never going to fall asleep if they were all riled up, after all. It wasn't as if the archangel of the lord actually needed sleep anyway, even if the kids didn't have to know that. “I’ve always wanted to test just how much my back can take.”

The younger boy looked like he wanted to protest, but when Dean pressed Sam’s shoulders into the mattress on the way over to the bed that was closer to the door the younger Winchester got the hint and stayed put. Sam pulled the comforter around his body, only closing his eyes when he was sure that his brother really was getting ready to go to sleep on the other bed. It was as if the little one thought that his brother might still have to give up on a good night’s rest as soon as he wasn’t watching anymore.

Once the two of them were settled, Gabriel turned off the light and went to lie down himself. He didn’t need to sleep, but he could if he chose so. It wasn’t like there would be anything else to do for the next few hours. He could hardly leave the kids and he really didn’t want to spend that time thinking about how the brothers managed to tug on his heartstrings every other minute.

The archangel hadn’t been asleep for long when a noise dragged him back to full wakefulness. He was just about to get up and see what was wrong when Gabriel noticed that he wasn’t the only one who had woken up.

“’S okay, Sammy,” Dean whispered in a soothing tone, petting his brother’s hair as he sat on the bed next to him, “Just a dream.”

It wasn’t even a moment later that Sam’s arms were wrapped around the other boy as tightly as possible while he was sobbing into his chest. His words were nearly unintelligible, but after a while parts of his speech became clearer. “… not coming back… gone too… alone…”

“Dad’s always coming back, you know that,” the older Winchester stated with clearly faked conviction, squeezing his brother, “And I’m never leaving you, Sammy.”

Gabriel really felt like smiting someone or something simply from listening to the two boys. It wasn’t enough that Sam’s abandonment issues were strong enough for him to wake up crying in the middle of the night. No, Dean apparently was familiar enough with scenes like this to immediately know exactly what was up and to know exactly what sorts of lies to tell to get his younger brother to calm down again!The only upside in all this was that Gabriel had started to have a whole new understanding of why the Broward County mystery spot incident had failed as spectacularly as it had.

In the end the archangel settled for keeping completely still and silent as to not make the two kids feel embarrassed. Gabriel waited until the silent noises accompanying the brothers’ movements and their whispering had died down before he even dared to breathe more deeply again. He waited a couple of minutes longer before he tried to go back to sleep himself.

Gabriel wasn’t surprised in the slightest when he got up in the morning to find Sam and Dean sleeping on the same bed after all. The way the younger Winchester was impersonating an octopus, having wrapped himself around his older brother completely, made the archangel smile. At least in their sleep they looked carefree.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

 

The two Winchesters were still sleeping peacefully, when Castiel suddenly appeared in the middle of the motel room. Before the dark-haired angel knew what was happening, his older brother had already grabbed him and dragged him out through the front door.

“How were you going to explain your sudden appearance to them?” Gabriel asked in a hushed, but fierce tone. He had made plans for a quite nice day for the three of them, including ditching their awful motel room for a place more after his liking, so he wasn’t going to let Castiel of all people ruin that by scaring the kids the moment one of them woke up.

How was it that the archangel had turned into the one who was responsible for monitoring that sort of thing, anyway?

“My apologies,” Castiel replied, though his puzzled tone and head-tilt gave away that he wasn’t exactly sure what he was even apologizing for. He had not seen the problem with simply appearing in the motel room. The seraph had been the one to get Dean and Sam into the room in the first place after all and they hadn’t walked through the door then. Castiel couldn’t even start to comprehend what that would have changed in just one day.

Both children had been too dazed by whatever spell had been worked on them to realize what was happening at the time. However, it had helped that at least Dean had shown some signs of recognition toward Castiel.

“Whatever,” Gabriel huffed, realizing to his horror that he had just copied one of Dean’s favorite adolescent responses to just about everything. They hadn’t even spent a single full day together and already he was getting used to the kids. He just knew that this was going to come back and bite him in the ass sooner or later. If Castiel hadn’t seemed as honestly distressed as he had when he had first asked for Gabe’s help, the archangel would have had to assume that this was a ploy to get him to form attachments to the vessels, so he would change his mind about getting involved in the Apocalypse.

“I have not been able to find the culprit yet,” the seraph explained the reason for his visit after a few moments of silence, “However, from what I was able to discover, it stands to reason that our brothers have caused all this.”

Castiel hadn’t been able to find any signs for the involvement of any demons or witches. Then there was the fact that, while they were trying to keep it under covers, he was also very certain that the angels were unusually interested in finding out about the Winchesters’ whereabouts. It stood to reason that they knew that their chances to get Dean’s consent to being Michael’s vessel were better than they had ever been as things were.

“Wow, our brothers have really started to play just as dirty as everyone else,” Gabriel snorted, “Don’t know why that surprises me.”

The archangel liked to believe that heaven had had higher standards, once upon a time, anyway. Sure, they had invented the first ways of cheating right around the time they had come up with the first games, but there had always been limits and rules that couldn’t be broken under any circumstances. Gabriel at least had thought that having to get real consent from an intended vessel was one of those unbreakable rules. Children – even very young ones – could technically be used as vessels, but changing adults back into children so they wouldn’t be able to remember that they didn’t want to be vessels was cheating for sure. Not to mention that he highly doubted that anyone was going to fully explain to either boy what exactly saying ‘yes’ entailed. Gabriel’s mind raced through all those thoughts and it enraged the archangel on a level he wouldn’t have been able to put into words. It wasn’t only about realizing just how far his brothers had sunk, however.It was also about seeing how much baggage these two had had even before the angels stepped in and ruined their already unstable lives. He knew somehow everything connected back to heaven's big plan. While he really didn't want to get involved, his brothers were doing nothing short of pushing his temper.

“I am sorry to inconvenience you further.” Castiel’s voice brought Gabriel back to the present and to the topic at hand. He might have gotten a little lost in his own thoughts for a moment there.

“Yeah, sure you are,” the archangel stated dismissively, waving his hand, “Forget it, Cassy, we’re actually having a blast here.”

The seraph really didn’t need to know that babysitting the miniature hunters wasn’t all fun and games. Father forbid if the angel started to pick up on the archangel's emotional reaction to the boys. Gabriel really could do without the accusation of starting to feel sorry for and protective over the kids, thank you very much! It was bad enough that he himself knew that both those things were definitely happening. Gabe knew that even one toe past the clearly drawn line of what he was willing and unwilling to do in his assistance of the Winchesters and he'd suddenly end up in a death match with his two bigger, and admittedly stronger, brothers. Too much sympathy for the Winchester brothers was inevitably going to be bad for his health.

“I mean, c’mon. Little big Dean-o and the Sasquatch in Ewok size!” Gabriel laughed, forcing all thoughts of how he liked the boys for anything more than the amusement they provided him from his mind. “Or in the size of one of those Wookie kiddies from the Christmas special.”

Honestly, the archangel simply couldn’t get used to the fact that someone as tiny as eight year old Sam could grow up to become the giant of a man he had started to dub ‘Samsquatch’ whenever he thought of him a while ago. What was he supposed to call him as things were, anyway? Samunchkin? Sampact? Sampaloompa?

“I don’t understand that reference,” Castiel frowned deeply, tilting his head in confusion. He often wished that he would be given the time to build up knowledge about all these things Dean and now Gabriel were so fond of referencing, but ever since he had first come to Earth the chance had not presented itself. Given the circumstances, not having had the time to learn about pop culture and figures of speech was a minor regret of his, but it was a regret nevertheless.

“That’s no shame. Hardly anyone does. What a total clusterfuck. I bet Lucas would sell his soul to make sure everyone forgot,” Gabriel babbled on, knowing full well that he wasn’t making things better for his brother. Some things just had to be said, however. “Then again, looking at those godawful prequels that still made money? Yeah, he probably sold his soul, anyway.”

Actually, the archangel – or rather Loki – had some contacts that might be able to tell him exactly, if George Lucas had sold his soul and for what price. If the matter still seemed interesting enough once he was back to his usual life, he might just go and ask one of them.

“You continue to confuse me,” Castiel admitted, though he had little hopes that his brother would take his words to heart and start to speak about things he could follow again.

“What I’m saying is,” Gabriel explained, “The Weechesters are freaking adorable and as long as you don’t send any trouble our way, I’ll gladly watch them for another while.”

He still had every intention to turn tails and flee the very first moment it looked like Michael or Lucifer discovered where the Winchesters were hiding. He wasn’t going to hand the kids over exactly, but he wasn’t going to keep either of his older brothers from taking them, either. Wonderful, it wasn’t even 9 a.m. and he had already discovered another thing that made him uncomfortable. Couldn’t a trickster have some peace of mind in the time before breakfast?

“You have a strange way of expressing yourself,” Castiel pointed out in a clearly disapproving tone. They could have spared a lot of time, if his brother had simply said what he had meant from the start!

“Pot and kettle, Cassy. Pot and kettle,” Gabriel laughed, patting the seraph’s shoulder before he turned back toward the motel room door, “C’mon, let’s tell the kiddies that they’re stuck with good old me for another while. And while we’re at it, you should also tell them that I’m not some creep or pedophile and that they can safely ditch this stinky motel room and come stay at my place instead.”

The archangel might have been wrong, but he assumed that Sam and Dean had accepted him as easily as they had, because they had been sure that Castiel had sent him. So, having the seraph tell them that it was okay for them to be relocated sounded like a good idea. His brother would only have to watch the boys for the short time he was going to need to find a suitable place and put up all the protections and entertainment they were going to need.

Gabriel had been reaching for the door handle when Sam’s frightened yell made both angels storm back into the room side by side. The archangel’s head might have had every intention to dump the kids at the first sign of trouble, but apparently his instincts hadn’t quite gotten the message. The picture of the two angels stumbling through the door and even getting stuck for a moment, would have been funny under different circumstances.

“Cas! You’re back!” Dean exclaimed happily, quickly approaching the two adults without acknowledging that they were both looking around for a threat that didn’t exist.

“You’re such a jerk!” Sam yelled, in his squeaky pre-adolescent voice that could have made a normal adult’s ears ring. He jumped out of the still vibrating bed he had been sleeping in until he had been rudely woken up a minute ago.

“Cas gave me the quarters to use however I see fit,” the older Winchester retorted smugly, standing next to the dark-haired adult. Somehow Dean had a feeling like Castiel would side with him, if he needed the backup. Not that he was going to need backup to handle his little brother. Sam had learned every single one of his moves from his older brother, after all! It also helped that he was scrawny as hell. Sam never even got to honestly try to attack the older boy however, Gabriel’s outstretched arm held him back before he could get close enough.

Once the archangel had realized that Dean had started the bed’s ‘magic fingers’ feature while his brother had still been asleep and had scared the kid awake with it, he just had to laugh. The fact that the boy had immediately tried to put the blame on Castiel instead made the entire thing even more hilarious. Oh, the archangel would gladly help the younger Winchester to retaliate later on, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t congratulate Dean on a prank well done.

Sam of course, took Gabriel’s laughter as adding insult to injury and brought on the hurt puppy eyes full force, until the archangel ruffled his still sleep mussed hair and patted his shoulder amicably. It was a silent promise to team up against the older boy later on and it looked like Sam was all too willing to take him up on the offer.

“Geez, Sammy, don’t get your panties in a twist! Magic fingers are meant to be relaxing!” Dean took another dig at his younger brother, never leaving Castiel’s side as he did so. Hey, the shorty had his own adult by his side, so it was only fair that he kept his own close, too.

“Gabriel is no creep or pedophile and you should consider staying at his place for a while,” Castiel suddenly blurted out awkwardly. His brother had told him that he needed to speak to the children about this earlier and he had seen no better way to incorporate what he had to say into the conversation.

An uncomfortable silence spread like a whirlwind through the room. Suddenly the morning birds outside were making more noise than the inhabitants of the lousy motel room. At least both Winchesters were distracted from their argument, by the need to stare at the angel like he was crazy.

“Thank you, Castiel, for making me look like a creep and a pedophile,” Gabriel spoke up in an amused tone to lighten the mood and to make the scenario in which he was exactly those two things look ridiculous.

“But what I said-“ Castiel tried to clarify. Sometimes he got the impression that he could do nothing right. Even if he was only repeating what his brother had told him word for word it still was wrong somehow. The most frustrating thing was that nobody ever seemed willing to explain to him what exactly he had done wrong, however.

“I say,” Gabriel pointedly interrupted his brother before he could make matters worse again, “You three go and have a healthy and hearty breakfast, while I go and make sure that all the inappropriate stuff is stowed away.”

First of all, he would have to make sure that there even was inappropriate stuff to stow away. It couldn’t be that hard to find an empty apartment somewhere close. Snapping all the things they were going to need into existence should be even less of a problem, really. He’d still need some time to set everything up, though.

Both boys obviously were hungry enough to like at least the first part of the plan well enough. They’d have to see how they were going to feel about the second part, once the time came to cross that bridge.

Sam waved toward Gabriel for a moment before he followed Dean and Castiel out the door. The brothers’ discussion about the merits of waffles versus bacon started up immediately afterward.


	5. Chapter 5

**5**

 

It was truly impressive how much the two Winchesters could eat, if they were told to just get whatever they wanted. Granted, they were at an age where they were still growing – Sam was overdue for a serious growth spurt, in Gabriel’s opinion – but the archangel had had enough time to go and find an empty apartment, make the owner believe that he had rented the thing years ago, furnish it and then go and find Castiel and the two boys and they were still eating!

Dean was at his second helping of eggs and bacon while his younger brother had ordered a few waffles and after finding out that they came with some fresh fruit topping had asked, if it was possible to just get the fruit. Sometimes the older Winchester really wondered how it was possible that the two of them were related.

Gabriel sat down in the booth next to Sam, trying to decide if there was still enough food left on the children’s plates to give him enough time to order some sweet treat. However, he didn’t want to delay them from checking out the apartment any longer than necessary and decided that waiting until they had changed locations was the better choice. Not to mention that he had had a cupcake and a Popsicle while working. That didn’t keep him from producing a strawberry flavored lollipop from his pocket, though.

“We can go as soon as you’re ready,” Gabriel announced cheerily, unwrapping the lollipop as he spoke, “I hid my Playboy and Casa Erotica collection so Dean-o will have the hell of a time finding it.”

Dean huffed in annoyance, though it wasn’t completely clear if he thought that he was being unfairly accused of something or if he was disappointed. Then again, he was only twelve years old and had gotten red ears from seeing the Sports Illustrated swimwear edition in his duffle bag yesterday, so chances were that he was only at the start of figuring out what his dick was actually for.

“Whatever,” Dean muttered, glaring at the archangel when Gabriel nudged Sam’s shoulder with his elbow amicably as his younger brother – the traitor – chuckled. He really wished he had chosen to sit next to Sammy that very moment, but Castiel had chosen to sit facing the door and Dean had slid into the booth next to him so he could watch both his brother and the door. Not that sitting next to Cas wasn’t nice. The adult was mostly quiet and showed interest in everything he had to say, what was not to love about that?

“How long are we going to stay with you?” Sam wanted to know, pushing his now empty plate away as a sign that he at least was ready to leave. To be honest, he felt a little torn on the matter of what he wanted the answer to his question to be. On the one hand, Gabriel saying that they were going to stay with him for a longer time meant that they wouldn’t have to move again so soon, but on the other hand it would also mean that their father would be gone for a long time. It didn’t help that the younger Winchester was really sick of getting attached to new people just to have to leave them behind later, so Sam thought having very little time to bond with the adult might be better, after all.

“However long it takes,” Gabriel shrugged casually, “I’ve got space, I’ve got time, we’re going to have fun.”

At least the archangel hoped that they were going to have fun. Oh, he didn’t doubt that he had the abilities needed to entertain two children for a longer period of time, but he had already learned that the two Winchesters had issues he hadn’t even dreamed of before and that would surely continue to complicate matters. At this point it wasn’t even worth mentioning anymore that he had gotten into this entire damned thing because he had assumed that he was going to get nothing but amusement out of it. That train had left the station from platform ‘You’re screwed’ and was well on its way to ‘Forget it, Sucker!’ land.

“What about dad?” Dean asked, before his younger brother had the chance to voice his obvious displeasure over the evasive answer he had gotten. The older Winchester was sure that however long all this was going to take wasn’t as important as the fact that their father had no idea where they were going to be, as far as he knew.

“Castiel will tell John where you are, won’t you Cassy?” Gabriel replied, putting the sweet treat into his mouth finally. He couldn’t help wondering if Castiel was going to take this as a command to go and find John Winchester’s soul, wherever it had disappeared to after getting out of hell, just to tell him what his sons were having a long sleepover with the archangel, or if his younger brother could take a hint and would lie as he was meant to.

“Of course,” Castiel agreed seriously, meeting Dean’s gaze when the twelve year old was looking at him, trying to determine whether the adults were telling the truth. Oh, the older Winchester trusted the dark-haired man completely; it was Gabriel he still wasn’t sure about. He also couldn’t shake the feeling that something fishy was going on, but Cas apparently was completely sure that them staying with the other man was a good idea. That alone was enough to make Dean begrudgingly accept the short adult, he would keep a close eye on him however.

“And what about the Impala?” Dean asked suspiciously. They could hardly leave the Impala in the motel parking lot, that just didn’t seem right and he wouldn’t stand for it!

“Don’t worry, Dean-o, I’ll drive her over to my place,” Gabriel assured the pre-teen, waving his lollipop around as he spoke, “Too bad that you’re too much of a Weechester to do it yourself.”

It was also too bad that he would have to give the Impala some sort of strange engine noise to make sure that the lie he had told the two boys the other day would hold up. Even Gabriel had to admit that messing with a classic beauty like that was a bit tragic. Dean was probably going to want to kill him for ever touching his baby, as soon as he was all grown up again, but that was a risk the archangel would have to take. In fact, he’d gladly take it just to be able to remind the older Winchester of the fact that Gabriel had at one point driven his precious Impala whenever their ways were going to cross in the future.

Dean immediately huffed and puffed because of the nickname he had just been given. He couldn’t come up with a good retort to save his life however, so he settled for narrowing his eyes at the annoying adult and eating the last of his bacon.

“Maybe we should get another pie,” the older Winchester pondered out loud a minute later when they passed the pastry display by on their way outside. “Just in case.”

To be honest, after eating nearly an entire cherry pie by himself the other day, he didn’t have the intense craving for his favorite sweet treat he sometimes had. He could always do with another slice of pie however. Besides, as he understood it, it was his and Sammy’s duty as the ones being babysat, to thoroughly test how much they could get away with.

“I like your style, Dean-o, but not today,” Gabriel replied with a chuckle, refraining from ruffling his hair. He didn’t put it past the older Winchester to bite him for something like that, “I’ve got one at home. It’s not a home without pie!”

Dean’s enthusiastic nod of agreement caused his younger brother to roll his eyes. The two boys were trying to find out which one of them could shove the other one harder, soon afterward. Honestly, looking at how protective the older Winchester could get over his baby brother within the blink of an eye, it was nearly good to see that he was all too willing to put Sam into his place just as quickly. That at least showed that they were capable of normal brotherly behavior.

“Cas, you’re coming too, right?” the older Winchester wanted to know as soon as they had left the diner. Somehow, he had the feeling that it would be better if the dark-haired adult came with them, but Castiel had given no indication that he would before. It had never been said that he wouldn’t either, however.

“I have to return to my duties,” Castiel stated, regret evident in his tone. At least, he had been able to determine that both brothers seemed happy enough with the way Gabriel was watching over them. Sam apparently was fonder of the archangel’s ways, but Dean had had no overly worrying complaints, either. The seraph was simply grateful to have found a possibility to keep the brothers safe in their vulnerable state, while he worked on getting them back to normal.

“I will try to come back as quickly as I can,” the angel promised a moment later. He had some hopes that he would come back quickly and with a solution to their problem, but even if finding a cure for the Winchesters’ condition took longer, he had every intention to keep in contact.

“Whatever,” Dean muttered, trying to cover his disappointment. He turned around to march off toward the Impala with pride, but couldn’t hide the frown that came over his face the moment he turned from the angel. He assumed they were going back to the motel, because they still had to get their stuff and Gabriel had said he intended to move the car, anyway. Nobody was even trying to stop him, which also spoke for the theory.

“Dad always says he’ll try to come back quickly, too,” Sam whispered to the archangel as an explanation for his brother’s behavior. He had grabbed the adult’s hand instinctively when his brother had stormed off. The younger Winchester knew all too well that there was no talking to Dean when he was like that and he didn’t want to be yelled at for whatever reason just for running after him when he wanted to cool off on his own.

Gabriel nodded, squeezing the little boy’s hand reassuringly. He was starting to understand more and more about the brothers, and it still made him feel uncomfortable, but Sam was just a kid who needed someone to hold on to as things were. The archangel could at least do that.

“Alright, Cassy, see you later then,” Gabriel stated in a casual tone, patting his brother’s shoulder with his free hand for a moment before he grabbed his upper arm and pulled him closer, “Remember your promise. I’m holding you responsible, if Dean-o gets all cranky when you don’t show your face!”

Sam looked from one adult to the other with big eyes. There had been similar scenes between their father and Uncle Bobby, but they usually ended with John getting mad and then not coming back for a long time, anyway. Castiel only nodded without saying anything. He looked like he was taking his own promise and Gabriel’s command very seriously, however. How were those two connected to each other anyway? The younger Winchester didn’t believe for a second that Castiel had found Gabriel over some babysitter service or something.

“C’mon Samunchkin, we’ve got your things and your grouchy brother to collect,” the archangel suggested more or less dragging the kid back toward the motel, effectively ending his overthinking of the situation that way.

“B-Bye Cas!” Sam called back over his shoulder, but the dark-haired man had disappeared already. Of course, the younger Winchester didn’t know where he had meant to go to, so he thought maybe he had just had to cross the closest corner. Though Castiel had still disappeared pretty quickly, even if that was the case. Sam had more important matters to deal with, however. Like the fact that his brother had just stormed off and the stupid nickname he had just been given.

“Don’t call me that!” Sam pouted, still holding on to the archangel’s hand firmly, though. It was bad enough that he was a tiny kid – smaller than most boys his age – they didn’t have to draw even more attention to that! Especially since he and Gabriel had agreed that he was going to grow up to be taller than Dean just the other day!

“How about Sampact instead?” the archangel asked in an amused voice, noticing that the boy pulled a face again immediately. So, Sam’s famous bitch-face was something he had been practicing at least since he had been eight years old? It was too good to resist. Teasing the kid was all fun and games and he had every intention to stop before any tears got involved. “No? What about Samini?”

“Sambo was sort of okay,” Sam admitted with a deep sigh. He figured that he might be able to get out of this stupid discussion by giving the adult an acceptable nickname to call him. He hoped that Gabriel was going to honor his preferences, anyway. “I guess sometimes Sammy is, too.”

“Alright, kiddo, I’ll try to remember that,” Gabriel promised, ruffling the younger Winchester’s hair which immediately made him pout again. The archangel just had to annoy the boy a little. Giving in where the nicknames were concerned meant that he had to mess with his hair to even things out. Nobody should ever be able to accuse Gabriel of being too reasonable!

As it turned out Dean had calmed down considerably in the time they had needed to catch up with him. The older Winchester settled for the minimal amount of sulking necessary to get the average pre-teen through the day. He was pretty quiet though, until they had packed their things and even cheered up a little once they got into the Impala.

The place they were going to could hardly be any more rundown than the one they were leaving and there had been the promise of pie. All in all, the day looked more promising than most.


	6. Chapter 6

**6**

 

“What do you say?” Gabriel asked as they were standing in the doorway of the guest room. He was pretty sure that the boys would have nothing to complain about. The archangel was a huge hedonist and enjoyed a lot of the things life had to offer, so he had furnished the apartment accordingly. There was no use creating an environment that would bore him or the Winchesters too easily. Bored children were difficult children after all and to be fair about the same could be said for Gabriel.

“It’s really cool,” Sam answered, looking around the fairly spacey room the adult showed them. If the younger Winchester said that they had stayed in motel rooms that had been smaller than this guest room, he would be exaggerating, but not by as much as most people would think. He didn’t care so much about the size of the room, anyway. The well filled bookshelf wasthe focus of the younger Winchester’s attention and much more important, if somebody had asked him.

“There’s only one bed,” Dean huffed, looking for the inflatable bed – or mattress; please don’t let it be a mattress – that had to be somewhere around. Alright, they had passed the living room by on their way to the guest room and the couch there looked nice enough to sleep on, but the idea of one of them having their own room and the other one sleeping on the couch bothered the older brother.

“Wow, keen perception there, Dean-o,” Gabriel commented, grinning like he knew of some great joke he wasn’t sharing with the brothers. In fact, that was exactly what was going on, too.

“There is a second room,” the archangel announced, crossing the hallway to open another door that led to a nearly identical room. The big difference was that there was a small TV and various magazines lying around. “Long as you two don’t kill each other over who gets to stay where, I’ll let you choose.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a measuring look before they quickly shook their fists three times in an impromptu game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’. The older Winchester’s scissors, lost against his brother’s rock; but when the younger brother turned around to go back to the room they had seen first, Dean made a victorious gesture, anyway. It was just great when the things each one of them wanted went together as perfectly as they sometimes did.

“You two make yourself at home, I’ll be in the kitchen,” Gabriel stated, watching with a fond smile as the boys went to inspect their rooms enthusiastically. It looked like he had done something completely right, which was a pretty good feeling.

Once in the open kitchen, which Gabriel had made sure was attached directly to the living room, the archangel started with the preparations for making strawberry milkshakes. So, what if he thought that Dean would like to have one too once the pre-teen was done checking out his room? Gabriel had admitted a while ago, if only to himself, that there was no chance he could keep himself from getting a little too attached to the two boys. However, he could keep the Weechesters and the normal Winchesters separated as firmly as possible in his mind. As long as the sympathies he had for the children, weren’t going to carry over to their adult selves, everything was alright. At least, that's what he continued to tell himself while scooping out ice cream.

“Uh… Mr. Gabriel?” Sam spoke up reluctantly, just as the archangel finished putting all the ingredients for a world-class milkshake into the blender. The kid was stepping from one foot to the other a little nervously and he looked uncertain about what he was going to say. All that did, was make Gabriel curious to learn what that kind of strange behavior was about.

“Just Gabriel will do,” the archangel clarified. He put a halt on the milkshake project, in favor of giving his full attention to the eight year old. Whatever it was, couldn’t take that long and was important enough for the kid to get antsy about. That didn’t mean that Gabriel had to switch to serious mode yet, however.

“Or do you want me to call you Mr. Sambo?” the archangel asked with a playful wink. He was fully prepared to go through with it, if the younger Winchester for some reason actually chose that that nickname variation was preferable. Chances for that had been very slim even before Gabriel saw the all too clear reaction the kid was giving him.

Sam scrunched up his nose in distaste immediately. He had a feeling that the adult was nowhere near the end of the stupid nicknames he could think of giving to him, so he’d have to be very careful there. However, the younger Winchester hadn’t come to talk to the adult about names or titles. There was another topic Sam felt he had to bring up. He had taken a look at all the books in the room he was going to be staying in and that had reminded him or something very important.

“My textbooks weren’t in my duffel bag,” Sam explained, trying not to show how much the absence of his schoolwork actually bothered him. He really didn’t need another person who’d call him a nerd! His older brother did more than his fair share of teasing, all by himself. Dean only did it to get a rise out of him and the younger Winchester knew it, but his older brother wasn’t the only one who called him a nerd and it hurt a bit to hear it.

“They’re probably in the trunk of the car,” Gabriel suggested with a shrug. He had a feeling like he’d have to use the trunk of the car as an excuse for a lot of missing things the boys would be looking for. As long as he didn’t let either one of them take a look inside, it was a pretty damn good excuse, too. They were basically living in that car, after all. He could will just about anything they asked for into existence and just claim he got it from the Impala that way.

“We… we’re not going to school while we’re here, right?” the younger Winchester asked with a sigh. He somehow managed to give his voice an undertone that said ‘I know, I shouldn’t talk to an adult like this’ at the same time as his eyes said ‘This is not okay’. It was actually quite impressive.Gabriel had to bite back a grin, thinking of how even tiny Sam's intelligence and love of knowledge was huge. It was a trait that was actually quite admirable.

“You won’t be here long enough for that to make sense,” the archangel replied as honest as he could be about the matter. Of course, there was also that little issue about the Winchesters actually not being children and getting them enrolled at any school putting them at a greater risk of being found.

“Can I have my books then?” Sam requested in that resigned tone that made him sound much older than he actually was. It also spoke for discussions like the one they were having being commonplace among the Winchesters.

“Let me clarify that, kiddo,” Gabriel stated, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. It didn’t work as well as he would have liked, though. “I just told you you don’t have to go to school, so you want your textbooks to study?”

There it was, the moment Sam really didn’t like. So, maybe it was a nerdy thing of him to do, maybe he was a dork, but he still wanted his textbooks, dammit! “Gotta keep up somehow,” the younger Winchester mumbled, looking at his shoes unhappily.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’ve got a hungry brain to feed, I’m all for that!” Gabriel was quick to reassure the boy, stepping away from the kitchen counter to place his hands on Sam’s shoulders, before giving them a pat and turning towards the door. “I’ll go get them for you right now, alright?”

The younger Winchester nodded quickly, giving the adult a smile that didn’t quite show off his dimples. It was a good enough start, anyway. Gabriel left the boy with the instruction to go ahead and work the blender, or get his brother to do it, whichever he thought was best.

The rest of the day passed very quickly and blissfully uneventfully. Sam was happy enough with the used textbooks the archangel had handed to him and Dean hadn’t found anything to complain about since he had discovered that Gabriel had a premium cable subscription. Between the boys doing their things and a couple of meals and snack breaks time nearly seemed to fly by.

“First shower’s mine!” the older Winchester exclaimed sometime after dinner. The archangel immediately suspected that something was fishy when Sam never even tried to give a token protest against his brother claiming some privilege for himself. Dean didn’t seem to notice, though.

“You need help there, Sambo?” Gabriel asked with a smirk a few moments later. The younger boy had started to look through the kitchen cabinets immediately after his brother had closed the bathroom door. It was pretty obvious that he was looking for something. Chances were that whatever it was, the archangel would gladly help him.

“I… uh… no, I’m good,” Sam stammered. He was a little embarrassed from the attention he had drawn to what he was doing. He knew that his plan was childish, but Dean had started it when he had played that stupid prank on him in the morning and the younger Winchester couldn’t let him get away with that! It was an unspoken rule of brotherhood that he had to get his revenge!

Gabriel shrugged lightly and went back to watching the Dr. Sexy marathon he had discovered earlier. He was sure to learn what Sam had been up to soon enough. The archangel also thought that he could trust that the younger Winchester didn’t have any plans to demolish the entire apartment. Plus, a little prank war between brothers was something the trickster god could get behind for sure.

Sam kept stealing glances toward the adult to make sure that he wasn’t being watched too closely or too critically. He didn’t want the surprise he had in store for his older brother to end in an argument with Gabriel. The younger Winchester liked the adult by far too much to want to upset him on purpose. It looked like Gabriel really was completely unconcerned with the things he was doing however, so that was a good sign.

The younger Winchester worked as quickly as he could to make sure that his brother didn’t surprise him while he was still caught up in the preparations. Giggling to himself, Sam went back to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice and then waited just around the corner for his brother to come out of the bathroom. The younger Winchester had grabbed the glass so he could act like he had only just went to get something to drink and was on the way back to his room. That way he’d be able to be close by when the trap he had set snapped shut.

“Shower’s free,” Dean called a minute later, grinning at his little brother. If the older Winchester hadn’t been quite so relaxed from his shower, he might have realized that his brother was watching him a little too closely and that he looked like he was trying very hard to maintain a casual, albeit slightly unnatural, poker face. As things were Dean pushed the door to his room open, not suspecting that anything was up until the little bucket full of cold water was emptied right over his head.

“Second shower was yours too!” Sam snickered, giving an undignified yelp when the older boy lunged at him. He barely managed to evade his older brother and ran back toward the living room. There was no use denying that he was hiding behind Gabriel, but Dean had used Castiel as a human shield against Sam in the morning as well. The fact that the archangel was clearly amused and trying not to laugh too hard at the dripping wet preteen, made the younger boy feel even better about his successful prank.

The older Winchester threw a murderous glare that promised revenge toward his baby brother. He didn’t say anything and just went to the bathroom to retrieve a towel, however. To Gabriel’s big surprise, Sam immediately hurried to get another towel to dry the floor with. Pranksters who knew how to clean up behind themselves were the archangel’s favorites, especially if he had to live with them. Having Coyote, Dolos or Anansi over for a visit was entertaining as hell, but the cleanup afterward usually was a bit of a drag, even if he could just snap things clean again. One snap never was enough, with the stuff those guys could come up with however.

The evening found a peaceful end after that. Surprisingly enough, it looked like even twelve year old Dean had a weak spot for Dr. Sexy. Sam didn’t show any sort of interest in the TV program, but he still went and got a book he wanted to check out and sat on the couch with the other two. This was the closest to a normal family evening the Winchesters had had in quite some time, even if they had had to exchange their dad for a babysitter to make it possible to begin with.

“What? Don’t I get a good night hug?” Gabriel asked when it looked like both boys were about ready to retire to their rooms and go to bed. The request might have looked seriously strange – Dean sure looked like he thought the adult had gone insane, keeping his distance as he simply waved ‘good night’, which would have to do – but he had a very good reason for it. Too bad he couldn’t exactly share it with the children.

As he had hoped, Sam gave him a quick hug, giving Gabriel the possibility to let just a tiny bit of his grace flow into the kid. If everything went as planned, the younger Winchester wasn’t going to have any nightmares that night.


	7. Chapter 7

**7**

 

Cooking the human way was one of the things Gabriel actually enjoyed every now and then. Sure, he could snap up anything he wanted and it probably would look better that way, but somehow a self-made meal always tasted just that little bit better. Thinking about it made Gabriel recall some human phrases about love and care. Something he would have likely laughed at a millennium ago.

The archangel liked to think that he had become quite the good cook over the years. Pancakes were hardly the most elaborate meal he could prepare, but he was pretty sure that both his guests would enjoy them. Not to mention that he technically owed Sam a short stack and a breakfast he could really enjoy. Alright, technically he owed him that short stack a hundred times over and then some.

Gabriel banned the thought from his mind as quickly as it had come up, though. Eight year old Sammy was the one he had to concern himself with and he maintained the thought process that he didn’t owe a thing to adult Sam. The archangel might have a better understanding for the why and how the mystery spot incident had gone as wrong as it had, but that didn’t mean that he thought he had been wrong in what he had done.

Exactly as Gabriel had planned, the smell of breakfast woke both boys up fairly quickly. While the two still looked sleepy and hardly mumbled a ‘morning’ each, they also looked like they were happy to be there and looking forward to their meal.

The archangel waited until all of them were seated and ready to eat, before he brought up another thing he had decided he would try. “Alright, kiddos, what do you want to do today?”

Sam looked at the adult from under his bangs, but kept quiet. There were a couple of things he could have said, but he was sure that Dean wouldn’t like going to some science museum and for all he knew Gabriel wouldn’t either. Next to him his older brother was trying to figure out how serious the archangel was about letting them decide in the first place. Neither boy wanted to make a suggestion just to have it shot down immediately, so they kept quiet.

“Guess we’ll just go to the Laundromat to wash my stinky socks then,” Gabriel joked, before he added in an energetic tone, “C’mon, I want to hear some suggestions! Anything goes, just keep it realistic.”

Of course, the archangel could have taken them for a picnic on the moon without breaking a sweat in theory. However, chances were that something like that would draw a lot of unwanted attention from all the wrong sources. They needed to stay hidden, staying among other humans was their best bet. Not to mention that the boys were apparently under the impression that all the supernatural things they hunted for a living usually didn’t exist.

“We could go to an arcade,” Dean shrugged, “I still got some of Cas’ quarters.”

Going to an arcade would also mean that they could all do their own thing and then meet up again later. The older Winchester would probably try to stick close to his baby brother just to make sure that nobody was picking on him, but the adult wouldn’t have to find a way to entertain them. All in all, Dean thought that he had made a pretty solid suggestion.

“That’s something,” Gabriel nodded to himself, considering the idea. Giving the boys a bag full of quarters and sending them off to a bunch of game consoles would help them pass the time for sure. It wasn’t exactly the most creative or extraordinary thing they could do, though. “What else?”

There had to be something else the two Winchesters could come up with. They were young boys, for crying out loud! They were bound to have wishes and all sorts of things they wanted to do! Gabriel understood that John Winchester had been big on the military style upbringing, but keeping the boys from having and expressing all the desires other children their age had, was just plain wrong.

“Don’t know, man. Watch a game or something?” Dean groaned while his brother kept stubbornly quiet. Checking out all the channels the TV around the place offered the other day, the older Winchester had seen that there were a couple of sports channels available. Something interesting was bound to be on. In fact, they might even be able to find something Sam would like to watch too, even if the bitch deserved having to watch whatever Dean wanted to see just for leaving him hanging when it came to making the stupid suggestions the adult wanted to hear! Seriously, did Dean have to do everything around here?

“Okay, you two get ready for the day and I’ll see what I can do,” Gabriel stated, clapping his hands once for emphasis. He would have liked it better, if one of the ideas had come from the Samunchkin too, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and Dean’s ideas had a lot of potential.

A lot of people would get a good laugh out of Gabriel – or rather Loki – playing the responsible adult, but he nearly automatically grabbed his phone and left a message to Castiel to tell the seraph to meet them for dinner at 6 pm, while the two boys went to get washed up and dressed. The archangel knew that his dark-haired brother wouldn’t let the Winchesters down on purpose, but he most likely would need the reminder to show his face regularly.

“The Wilmington Blue Rocks are having a training match against the Salem Red Sox today,” Gabriel announced when the two Winchesters came back to the kitchen a few minutes later, “And we’re going to be there.”

It was a minor league thing and didn’t count toward any championships or anything, but on really short notice, there was only so much even an archangel could do. Both boys looked like he had just told them that Christmas was in October that year, anyway.

The good mood lasted until they reached the parking lot where Gabriel had willed the car of his choosing into existence. He could hardly drive around in the Impala with the boys all too much since he had claimed that the car was possibly damaged. Moving the vehicle to a safe spot had been one thing, using it more excessively was just asking for the boys to get suspicious. Plus, the Impala wasn’t exactly an inconspicuous car and you never knew where you might come across someone who had some sort of unresolved issues with the Winchesters.

“That’s your car?” Dean asked incredulously, pulling a slightly disgusted face, “Dude, c’mon!I can't be seen riding in that tacky hunk of plastic!”

Gabriel shrugged lightly and smirked to himself before he pressed the button on the key that unlocked the apple-green VW beetle.

“You know, Dean-o, the stadium isn’t any further away, if you walk,” the archangel commented casually, not giving his voice any kind of threatening quality. What he had just said felt enough like a parent thing to say without making it a threat, as well. Not to mention, that he wasn’t willing to back that particular threat up with actions, anyway. He wanted to give the boys a nice day with a baseball game and a visit to the local arcade, after all.

“Whatever,” the older Winchester huffed, walking up to the co-driver’s side of the stupid car. He wasn’t going to sit in that back, that much was absolutely clear in Dean’s mind. When they were in the Impala with their dad driving he sometimes sat in the back with Sam to keep him company and so they could pass the time better with games and stuff. The backseat of the Impala was much more spacious, however.

“I think it’s cute,” Sam whispered, making sure that only Gabriel could hear him. He didn’t want to hear a lecture about cars from Dean later on and he especially didn’t want his brother to hear what he was going to say next.

“It suits you,” the younger Winchester mumbled, feeling how his ears grew hot from embarrassment. He half-hoped that the adult hadn’t heard him, but when Gabriel smiled warmly and patted his shoulder Sam had to smile, too.

The fact that the younger boy didn’t fight his brother over which one of them got to sit in the shotgun seat, combined with the fact that the archangel made sure that the radio was playing some of those classic rock songs Dean was so fond of, made their drive to the baseball stadium pleasant enough for all of them.

Once there, it became clear that the nice late October weather had attracted many baseball fans. The archangel wasn’t worried that they wouldn’t get tickets, though. Even if it looked like a lot of people were around, there weren’t anywhere near enough to fill up the stadium. Not to mention that they would have gotten their damn tickets, even if every single seat had been sold out. If the archangel Gabriel and trickster god Loki wanted something, he got it!

A short stop at the snack bar later and they were on their way to their seats. The stadium really wasn’t so packed that Sam had to be scared of getting lost, but that didn’t keep the Munchkin from grabbing Gabriel’s hand. If the younger Winchester felt better that way, the archangel wasn’t going to reject him. However, if Gabriel was going to develop a serious case of empty-nest-syndrome as soon as the two kids would inevitably be taken out of his life again, he was so going to blame Castiel for it. His blue-eyed brother better expect to be pranked to the end of the universe and back again for ever dragging him into this. He would pay, if Gabriel had to suffer through any kind of anguish because of it!

“What are you thinking about?” Sam suddenly asked, squeezing the adult’s hand a bit to get his attention. The eight year old had noticed that their babysitter sometimes got a sort of distant look on his face and that he always had to shake his head to get his focus away from whatever he had been thinking about again later. The younger Winchester recognized that kind of behavior, because he often did the same, when the thoughts of things he’d much rather not think about wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Nothing important. Don’t you worry, Sambo, you have all my attention now,” Gabriel grinned just a little too widely to be completely natural, squeezing the boy’s hand back. The archangel had the sinking feeling that the kid was looking straight through him, though. There was no way that Gabriel would ever admit that he was scared that he was getting too attached to the Winchesters brothers. He had no idea what exactly they would and wouldn’t remember once the spell was broken and he really couldn’t have their adult selves running around with the knowledge that he had a soft spot for them.

They found their seats easily enough and it turned out that they had a great view over the field. Being completely honest, Gabriel wasn’t that thrilled by the prospect of watching the game. After a thousand or so major league games, a little training match between two minor league teams wasn’t exactly the highlight of his day. However, both boys were excited and enraptured from the moment the players set foot on the field and that was what really counted for the time being.

It wasn’t that surprising that Sam was a quiet watcher while his brother was yelling instructions to the players every other moment. Gabriel chuckled under his breath when Dean’s enthusiasm didn’t allow the twelve year old to remain in his seat and he had to jump to his feet gesticulating wildly as he yelled, “Swing!”

The archangel didn’t have to think for longer than a moment before he decided to make the older Winchester’s day just that little bit better still. The next time the batter that Dean liked to yell to the most was up to bat, Gabriel concentrated his powers and reached out toward the ball and the bat, making sure that they connected with each other in exactly the way needed to give the home team a home-run and let the older Winchester catch the ball.

Dean looked at the baseball in his hands in complete silence, his eyes widening more and more as his mind fully processed what had just happened. The victory dance, complete with happy howling, started up soon afterward. If there had been room for doubt that he had done the right thing in the archangel’s mind, it would have been gone that moment.

“No way!” Sam exclaimed disbelievingly, staring at his brother and at the ball the older boy was showing to him. The chances for catching a ball like that just had to be very slim! The stadium was fairly big and there were a bunch of other people, but Dean had been the one who had been in the perfect place at the right time.

“Yes way!” the older Winchester shot back, his wide grin nearly splitting his face in half.

The game wasn’t over yet and both boys suddenly knew exactly which team they wanted to win. To the credit of the Wilmington Blue Rocks, it had to be said that they would have played more than decently without the little angelic push they received every now and then, but Gabriel wasn’t going to take any chances there. The two boys were going to have one of the best days of their lives and their team winning was going to be a part of that.

“C’mon, Dean-o, we’re going to get that signed for you,” the archangel stated decisively once the game was over for good. Both boys might have looked like they didn’t believe that getting an autograph for Dean’s baseball was possible, but they didn’t know who they were hanging out with. Gabriel wanted to see them both smile like it was Christmas and their birthdays again and what Gabriel wanted, Gabriel got.


	8. Chapter 8

**8**

 

The arcade Gabriel had chosen had a fairly big restaurant attached at one end. Being the cool adult custodian that the archangel had chosen to see himself as, he had just handed each one of the Winchester boys twenty dollars in quarters and had told them where they could find him. He’d be around if they needed something or wanted to join him for a sundae of their own.

Knowing that Sam and Dean would be busy spending money for awhile, Gabriel ordered the biggest sundae the restaurant had to offer. He wouldn’t have needed to crank the charm up to eleven to get the waitress to make sure that all twelve scoops of ice cream would be chocolate flavored, but where was the fun in simply asking for things? Linda had flirted back all too readily, anyway. If the archangel hadn’t had to watch the two children, he might have been tempted to take her home. Oh well, at least he was going to get his chocolate fix soon.

Unfortunately, Gabriel didn’t even make it to the third scoop of ice cream before a certain dark-haired angel suddenly appeared right in front of the archangel. Luckily, the two Winchesters were happily spending their quarters at the other side of the building and nobody in the vicinity seemed to pay any attention to the newly arrived angel, either.

“I believe I have found the perpetrator,” Castiel stated without further ado. The angel took his brother’s hint to sit down immediately afterward, however.

“Hello to you too, Castiel,” Gabriel replied in an exaggerated polite tone. It wasn’t like he had expected his little brother to suddenly grown a sense for normal human behavior. The archangel seriously considered whacking Castiel over the head with a book about behavioral rules, but it wasn’t likely to do much good.With his luck, it would make him forget the little behavioral rules the seraph did understand, like wearing clothes for instance. Actually, sending the blue-eyed angel to some pocket universe with 24/7 etiquette classes might be a good way to punish him for ever dragging Gabriel into the entire de-aged Winchester mess.

“It was Tarot who put the spell on Sam and Dean,” Castiel explained, ignoring his brother’s antics. Being in contact with the archangel as often as he was these days, the angel couldn’t help noticing that allowing his older brother to dictate where a conversation was going would inevitably take up much more time than insisting to stay with the topic at hand.

“Tarot? Are you talking about little ‘I like to watch time pass, because it’s so calming’-Tarot?” Gabriel asked, honestly surprised by what he had just heard. In fact, he was surprised enough to forget all about the melting chocolate treat in front of him. As unthinkable as it usually was to the self-proclaimed trickster, sometimes there were things that were more important than chocolate.

“I have heard two of Zachariah’s goons talking of him,” Castiel confirmed with a tight nod.

Gabriel might have been gone from heaven for a very long time, but Tarot had still been among the angels who liked to take a neutral position whenever it was possible when Castiel had been cast out. It was highly unlikely that their brother had changed this dramatically, by himself. However, knowing of Zachariah’s involvement gave both angels a pretty good idea of what might have happened.

“Alright, can’t say I’m surprised that Zach would be involved in something like this,” Gabriel shrugged with forced nonchalance, picking his abandoned spoon back up, if only to give his hands and mouth something to do. Thinking of the numerous things Zachariah might have done to one of his more pacifistic brothers, made him feel sick, so the archangel did what he did best and distracted himself with sweets.

“No offense, Cassy, but the whodunit doesn’t get us far here. You got any really useful information?” Gabriel asked a few spoonfuls of ice cream later.

“It is possible that the spell will not last forever,” Castiel answered, watching as his brother continued to devour his sundae in fascination. Eating was one of the things the angel was mildly curious about. It seemed pointless and like a waste of time to the angel, but there had to be something about it looking at how content Gabriel was. Castiel shook himself out of these contemplations to add the most important piece of information he had been able to acquire. “Apparently, Zachariah has made it very clear that he wants Sam and Dean found before the first of November.”

“See? Now that is useful!” Gabriel exclaimed cheerily, plucking one of the cherries from the top of his sundae and popping it into his mouth. “Great, so we just sit back, relax and wait for the little brats to be huge thorns in the side again.”

A week with the Winchesters didn’t sound too bad to the archangel. They had already made it through two and a half days and he already was too attached to them as things were, so it was too late for damage control anyway. Having a couple more days with them and knowing what the deadline was would give Gabriel the chance to make the most out of the time they had. Plus there may just sort of be the fact, that he wasn't quite ready to give them up yet. The Winchester brothers were too cute as things were and they really deserved having a few more happy days in their lives.

“I am not sure that would be the wisest thing to do,” Castiel objected, keeping his tone as respectful as he could. Gabriel clearly wasn’t like most of heaven’s ringleaders, but that didn’t mean that the seraph wanted to anger him; especially since the archangel was still his best bet to keep Dean and Sam safe until they were able to defend themselves again.

“Why not? Look at it as a vacation, Cassy. When else will they ever get the chance to take a week off?” Gabriel retorted, waving a spoonful of whipped cream and chocolate sauce in front of his brother’s nose as he spoke. Besides, the archangel really didn’t like the thought of losing his two kiddies before he got the chance to show them a good time – more than he had already, anyway – and then to say good bye properly.

“I don’t think that Dean would appreciate –“ Castiel tried to protest. He never got the chance to even finish his statement, however.

“Right now Dean-o appreciates the hell out of a lot of things you wouldn’t believe,” Gabriel interrupted his brother in a definite tone. It really wasn’t like turning the Winchesters back to their usual selves would make things better for them. In fact, it would mean to throw them back into the shark tank they came from. Yes, in the end it would be necessary, but they didn’t have to speed up the process!

“I will try to locate Tarot and get him to reverse the spell,” Castiel insisted, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He really didn’t understand why Gabriel was as amused as he was that moment, however. Of course, the seraph didn’t know just how much he had reminded his brother of the older Winchester just then.

“Do whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you,” the archangel shrugged lightly, shoveling the last of the unmelted ice cream into his mouth. Gabriel could clearly see that his brother was not fully buying what he had just said, but he had been quite serious. Whatever Castiel was going to do was none of his business and he wasn’t going to get any further involved into all of this for sure.

Alright, so maybe the archangel would have to put his foot down, after all. He hadn’t thought that his little brother had meant that he would go and search for the other angel immediately!

“Woah, not so quick there, hotshot! You’ll say hi to the kiddies and stick around for dinner first!” Gabriel demanded before Castiel could disappear on him and more importantly on the Winchesters. The archangel hadn’t forgotten how Dean had reacted to the seraph’s announcement, that he’d try to be back sometime the other day and he really didn’t want to deal with a mopey preteen just because Castiel couldn’t be bothered to show some manners and stay for a while.

For a moment it looked like the dark-haired angel was thinking about pointing out that Gabriel was not the boss of him, but in the end he only inclined his head. There was no need to unnecessarily upset the archangel who was still doing him a favor. Besides, Castiel trusted that his brother was taking good care of the Winchesters, but seeing for himself that they had everything they needed would be preferable.

The two angels heard the struggle before they got close enough to see the four brawlers. By the looks of it, the typical Winchester luck hadn’t shrunk any when the two Winchesters had. That was the best explanation as to why two at least sixteen year old teenagers were trying to subdue the two younger children. To their credit it had to be said that Sam and Dean were making it very hard for the teenagers to restraint them.

The bulkier one of the attackers never got to throw the punch he had aimed at the older Winchester, because the very moment he raised his fist was the moment when Castiel sprung into action. The dark-haired angel didn’t hesitate for a second, pushing the teenager away from Dean with enough force to make him fall back on his butt.

“You will not touch him!” Castiel growled in a menacing tone, letting his angelic authority bleed into his voice and fixing the fallen teenager with a hard glare. The angel put his hands on Dean’s shoulders and moved the twelve year old slightly behind him to be in a better position to protect him. The older Winchester might have protested against the treatment – the ‘I totally had this under control!’ was already on his tongue – but Castiel’s display of dominance and protectiveness had impressed him so much that he couldn’t do anything but stare at the adult.

Gabriel didn’t have troubles getting Sam out of the second teenager’s hold after that. The younger Winchester and the slightly skinnier teen both were stunned enough by what they had just witnessed that they had stopped their ongoing struggle. The archangel also was pretty sure that he saw more than just a hint of hero worship in Dean’s eyes. Unfortunately, he had to file that bit of information away under the ‘Must tease Dean and/or Castiel with mercilessly later’ category. As things were, they had other issues to deal with here.

“Alright, who wants to explain what this was all about?” Gabriel asked in an uncharacteristically serious tone, looking from one boy to the next. The narrowed eyes were reserved for the two teenagers, however.

“The son of a bitch stole Sammy’s quarters!” Dean yelled accusingly, pointing his finger at the skinnier teenager. It was obvious that from the older Winchester’s perspective, stealing from his younger brother was a capital offense. Gabriel was inclined to agree with him there. The two boys already had very little good things in their lives, so taking any of those they had from them was pretty bad. The archangel decided to pointedly ignore the fact that he hadn’t always thought along those lines when it came to the brothers, however.

“Oh yeah? Proof it!” the teenager shot back, crossing his arms in front of his chest and trying to appear as tall as he could get, which incidentally was taller than Gabriel’s vessel was. His friend had made it back to his feet in the meantime, as well. Together, the two teenagers very quickly regained their courage and arrogance.

“’S okay,” Sam mumbled before the archangel could say anything to set the two jerks straight. The resigned tone the younger Winchester had spoken with only strengthened Gabriel’s resolve to get the kid his quarters back, however. Dean apparently had similar thoughts on the topic, since Castiel suddenly had to keep the twelve year old from attacking both teenagers at once and all by himself.

“He doesn’t need to prove a thing, because I believe him,” the archangel spoke in a calm tone, stepping closer to the teenagers, “And you better give every last quarter back and apologize to those two before I get angry. Trust me, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

Not that Gabriel intended to level entire cities or send a plague down over something as petty as quarter theft, but there were more subtle ways with which he could show his anger. An assortment of non-lethal but very uncomfortable and unsexy diseases came to mind.That would have been particularly satisfying, given the fact that the teenagers were probably just at the beginning of their 'active' lives.

The time for subtlety was over the moment the archangel extended his open hand toward the skinnier teen in a clear demand to give the money back. The reaction Gabriel got was by far less vocal and by far more physical than he had anticipated, but that didn’t keep him from catching the teenager’s fist in his hand and squeezing until he the young hooligan was going to his knees from the pain. The archangel was careful not to cause any actual damage, but he didn’t release the boy’s hand until he scrambled to get the stolen quarters from his pocket and tossed them toward Sam. It wasn’t exactly what Gabriel had had in mind, but it would have to do. Both teenagers were in too much of a hurry to get away to insist on the apology they still owed the Winchesters.

“Never underestimate us little people,” the archangel commented, giving Sam a conspiratorial wink.

The younger Winchester only stared at Gabriel in awe. Maybe, just maybe, the possibility of always staying kind of short had just lost its sting a little.


	9. Chapter 9

**9**

 

It should never be said that Gabriel didn’t deliver what he promised; be it heaven, hell, or – as in this case – a pizza. It helped that a pizza place was right across the street from the arcade and that both Winchesters agreed that going there for dinner was a very good idea.

Castiel and Dean ended up sitting next to each other, facing the door as they had the previous day. Neither Sam nor Gabriel thought the matter was worth a discussion. The archangel mentally stored the fact that the older Winchester always wanted to sit next to Castiel away for future reference, however. One day the kid would be an adult again and Gabriel was pretty sure that it would be very easy to tease Dean with that piece of information then. The younger Winchester was too used to his brother watching out for any potential threats for both of them and the archangel was positive that he would sense any threat no matter if his back was turned or not.

Gabriel had more important matters than their seating arrangements to be concerned with, anyway. He had known that Sam wasn’t exactly a normal child, with the demon blood, being destined to be Lucifer’s vessel and all that crap. The archangel hadn’t known that there were very strange side-effects to ingesting demon blood as a baby, however. There simply was no other explanation for what he had just heard!

“Broccoli? Whoever wants broccoli on a pizza?” Gabriel asked incredulously, as soon as the waitress had taken note of all their orders and was on her way back to the kitchen. He didn’t want to give the impression that he wanted to publicly shame the kid for his strange taste in food, but the issue simply had to be addressed!

“I do,” Sam shot back defiantly, trying to kick Dean’s shin under the table, for the smug and mocking look his older brother was throwing his way. The eight year old was pretty sure that he had hit Castiel’s shin instead, but the adult didn’t even flinch, so it was hard to tell. He only furrowed his brow a little bit, but that might have been caused by something else. The younger Winchester might have been small for his age, but he had a lot of strength in his legs, so he believed that one of his kicks should have gotten more of a reaction.

“Good for you, kiddo,” Gabriel replied with a good-natured smile, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder to distract him from trying to reduce the bones in his brother’s legs to dust. A moment later the archangel gave up on trying holding back on the comment that was desperately trying to escape him, anyway. It just had to be said. “Even if it is a sin against good taste and mother nature herself.”

Sam continued to pout when Gabriel laughed and pulled the kid closer, ruffling his hair. The archangel was positive that the younger Winchester would forgive him easily enough. If he wasn’t completely wrong, the boy was already trying hard to stay mad and not to smile.Gabriel gave him a teasing wink to encourage the part of Sam that wanted to grin.

“You sure you don’t want any?” Dean asked Castiel a couple of minutes later when their pizzas arrived. Not that the older Winchester was offering to share his ham, bacon, pepperoni and chili peppers pizza. Actually, Gabriel would probably have to give the dark-haired adult some of his extra, extra cheesy pizza. Forcing Cas to have some of Sam’s veggie special with added broccoli would just be cruel, even if the adult sort of deserved it for not ordering his own meal in the first place.

“I do not require sustenance,” Castiel stated matter-of-factly, eyeing the piece of pizza Dean was already munching on with interest, however. The seraph couldn’t figure out why Sam’s order was supposedly strange when he had gotten the same his brother had in essence. The differences were only in the details, really. If the details of a pizza order were already enough to make someone look strange, Castiel had little hope of ever seeming anything, but strange to those around him. Not that he cared too much about the way most people thought of him. He would be more than happy with simply looking normal enough to Dean and Sam.

“That’s his way of saying ‘No, thank you. I’m not hungry’,” Gabriel commented casually, when the two Winchesters stared at the seraph dumbly. There was no use letting the kiddies start to think of Castiel as a total weirdo and – as had to be expected – his brother didn’t exactly do anything to explain himself. Somehow, Gabriel had to do all the thinking and hard work around here.

“You never eat with us,” Dean huffed, clearly sounding disappointed. It was like Cas was with them, but at the same time wasn’t. He was just sitting there watching them eat, the older Winchester mused, picking the chili peppers off his pizza absentmindedly.

“Too spicy for you?” Sam - the little shit – chuckled, nodding toward the small pile of chilies his brother had collected at the side of his plate. Granted, not all chilies were the same, so some might very well be way spicier than anticipated when placing the order. The younger Winchester still thought it was well within his rights as younger brother to mock Dean a little, though.

“You wanna eat them?” the older Winchester asked, holding one of the chilies between his thumb and forefinger, offering it to Sam.

The two boys were nowhere near done trying to stare each other down stubbornly, when Castiel suddenly grabbed one of the remaining chili peppers and without further ado bit half of it off, chewing for a moment before he swallowed. Both Winchesters stared at the seraph slack jawed. Dean knew first hand that those things were pretty damn spicy and Sam knew without a doubt that his brother wouldn’t have taken them off his pizza, if they weren’t.

“Dude, that was like, crazy!” the older Winchester exclaimed. The little bit of hero worship Gabriel had seen in his eyes earlier had returned full force. It was typical preteen boy behavior, really. Saving him from a bully and doing something completely crazy deserved about the same level of respect in their books.

“You’re sweating, bro,” Gabriel pointed out, smirking. It looked like the little stunt he had just pulled was having an effect on Castiel or his vessel. It was damn funny to watch, either way.

“I think I feel something,” Castiel admitted, frowning and tilting his head. The two boys burst into laughter at that nearly immediately and Gabriel joined them all too gladly. Sometimes Castiel was just too adorably clueless.

 

* * *

 

 

Gabriel might have pictured the perfect day he had wanted to give to the two Winchesters without any bullies picking on them, but other than that things had gone perfectly. Dean hadn’t even thrown a fit when Castiel had taken his leave this time around. It looked like little Dean-o was learning a lesson about trust that his adult self should better remember once it reappeared.

The archangel had made himself comfortable on the couch in his living room, watching the food network. It wasn’t like that many good things were on around 3 am and he simply hadn’t felt like creating his own program. Alright, watching the food network was the same to him as watching Dr. Sexy was to Dean, a guilty pleasure. Besides, it also was a source of inspiration. Gabriel didn’t care much for all the healthy stuff they tried to promote these days, but when it came to desserts they often managed to hit the bull’s-eye with him.

The cook – a motherly type looking woman in her forties – was about halfway done with the triple chocolate and caramel cake the archangel had been interested in, when he suddenly felt the atmosphere in the room shift slightly, announcing that he wasn’t alone anymore. The nervous energy rolling off the younger Winchester matched the jittery impression the boy wore once Gabriel actually looked at him.

“Is dad ever going to come back?” Sam mumbled, forcing his eyes to meet the adult’s, even as he continued to step from one foot to the other nervously.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Gabriel replied immediately, keeping his tone calm. The archangel knew that he had to find out where the question had come from in the first place to make sure that the boy would stop worrying already, even if this was likely going to be a conversation he didn’t really want to have. Especially because telling the truth wasn’t in the books here.

It didn’t look like the younger Winchester wanted to answer the question, however. Instead he just stared at the carpet as if the yellow stripes could tell him about the meaning of life. The longer Sam stood there thinking things through, the less he could remember why he had initially felt like he had to go and speak to Gabriel.

“Did you have a nightmare again?” the archangel asked in a slightly worried tone, making space for the eight year old on the couch and extending his arm toward him. “C’mere.”

Gabriel had been pretty sure that Sam had been dead tired and happy when he had gone to bed, so the archangel had been positive that the kid wouldn’t be plagued by nightmares. It looked like he had been wrong. At least, the younger Winchester was all too willing to take Gabriel up on his offer and moved to sit next to him immediately.

“Alright, kiddo, what’s going on in that big brain of yours?” the archangel spoke in a soft tone once the kid had settled down, “Promise I won’t laugh or get mad or whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

Gabriel usually was one of the last people who’d ever encourage others to lay their problems on him, but he would make an exception in this case. A little kid, like Sam was that moment, shouldn’t have to carry a load of worries so heavy that it caused nightmares every other night. And yes, a kid as young as Dean shouldn’t have to be the one person to help carry that burden, at least not as long as the archangel was around.

“It’s… it’s ‘cause you’re… and Cas is…” Sam stammered, trying but failing to put his thoughts into words. There had been a couple of things over the past days that hadn’t made a whole lot of sense, but then the younger Winchester’s usual dream had found an unusual end when – instead of Dean leaving him as well – a figure bathed in blinding white light and with wings had shown up. Of course, he knew that it had only been a dream, but it all had seemed so logical to him only a few minutes earlier.

“I’m afraid I can’t follow, Sambo,” Gabriel shrugged, trying to prompt the boy to try and explain his thought process to him. The archangel wasn’t quite sure what exactly he or Castiel had to do with the possibility of John Winchester never coming back to get his sons. Sure, the two of them knew that it wasn’t going to happen, but it wasn’t like they had given anything away to the kids.

“Dean… Dean told me that mom always said that angels were watching over us,” Sam suddenly blurted out. It was easy to see that the eight year old really wished he hadn’t said anything, but it was too late to have second thoughts about admitting what it was he had been thinking about.

“And Cassy and I are what you imagine those angels would be like?” Gabriel wanted to know, keeping his voice perfectly level. He knew that even the last little trace of the amusement he clearly felt, finding its way into his tone would have made the younger Winchester feel even more embarrassed.

It was crystal clear that Sam’s tentative nod was the best answer the archangel was going to get to his question. It also was quite likely that the picture the younger Winchester had of angels when he had actually been eight years old, had been a completely different one. Gabriel chose to take the admission as a compliment, anyway. He had to bite back the remark that their lives wouldn’t be as messed up as they were, if the angels had never taken an interest in them.

“Are you watching over us now, because dad’s not coming back?” Sam asked in a small voice. The younger Winchester usually acted and sounded mature beyond his eight years, but in that moment he was just a scared little kid holding on to the hope that, if everything else failed, angels would somehow make it all better. It also was obvious that the thought of his father never coming back to them was upsetting Sam, even if he tried his best to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall. The dam broke when Gabriel instinctively wrapped his arms around the boy, hugging him tight.

“Would you still ask that question after a good night’s sleep tomorrow morning?” the archangel spoke once Sam had managed to pull himself together. Somehow, telling the kid a convenient lie had felt wrong to Gabriel. Misleading Sam with a counter question was a completely different matter.

The archangel simply had to grin slightly when the thought that he would have made a good Jedi Master hit him. ‘What I told you was true, from a certain point of view’ came to mind. Unfortunately, the younger Winchester misunderstood the source for Gabriel’s amusement.

“You think I’m stupid now,” Sam sighed, looking like someone had just kicked his puppy.

“Nah, I just think you’re tired and need rest, kiddo,” the archangel stated seriously, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders once more. It really was about time Sam got back to bed and Gabriel was already making sure that no nightmares had any kind of chance to get to him for the rest of the night. “C’mon, it’s back to bed for you.”

The younger Winchester let the archangel steer him back toward his room without putting up any resistance. Sam was exhausted and – to be honest – he was feeling a bit better – though a little silly - after speaking to the adult. The eight year old was rather sure that he would be able to go back to sleep, anyway.

“One more thing, Sambo,” Gabriel said smiling, as he tucked the kid in, “I’m still waiting for your suggestion for a fun day. Anything you want, Munchkin.”

Sam blinked a few times, but then nodded seriously. He’d try to think of something, if it would make the adult happy.


	10. Chapter 10

**10**

 

Even though Gabriel didn’t have to sleep, he wasn’t exactly a morning person. Staying in bed as long as he damn well pleased, lazing around whenever he felt like it and just generally indulging his inner sloth for all it was worth, were some of the luxuries the archangel had learned to enjoy after leaving heaven. He absolutely didn’t plan to give any of those up anytime soon, either.

The Winchesters, even as kids, didn’t sleep much, however. They were always up fairly early from what the archangel had seen and Gabriel supposed that he could change his sleeping habits for the week he had them around. Not that he was doing it to give the kids the feeling that there was someone who would always be there for them, if they needed something. That would be absolutely absurd and completely against his intention to keep the already inevitable empty nest syndrome he would be suffering from after they were gone, to a minimum. Being up before the Weechesters was more about making sure that they didn’t act up while Gabriel wasn’t watching, really. If they decided to play more pranks on each other or create a big mess for whatever other reason, the archangel didn’t want to miss a second of it. He still was determined to get as much fun out of the entire situation as he could. The two boys weren’t the only ones who were supposed to have a good time!

A bottle of the best maple syrup Canada had to offer and the pile of fresh waffles the archangel had in front of him were guaranteed to give the day a good start. At least, that was what Gabriel thought before the older Winchester stood in front of him, his face as stern as a twelve year old could handle and puffing up his chest in a try to make himself look taller.

“I heard you talking to Sammy last night,” Dean stated, giving the adult a hard stare and crossing his arms in front of his chest in the manliest way possible. The older Winchester hadn’t heard what they had been speaking about, but the fact that Sam had woken up in the middle of the night and went to the stupid adult, they had only known a couple days rather than his big brother was everything he had to know, anyway.

“Insomnia runs in your family, huh?” Gabriel replied calmly, keeping his body language non-threatening. If Dean had been his adult self, the archangel would have made sure that the insolent moron understood that he was taking the wrong tone with the wrong person. However, getting into a pissing contest with a twelve year old really wasn’t that tempting.

“You better not try anything funny with my little brother, or I will castrate you!” Dean threatened the adult, to make sure that he really understood what this was all about. It wasn’t that the older Winchester didn’t understand subtlety, it was just that he thought it was a mostly stupid concept. If there was something that had to be said, it had to be said in a way that the other person simply had to understand. That way they couldn’t claim that they hadn’t known that their actions would have consequences and Dean never made threats he wasn’t fully prepared to go through with!

“Do you even know what that means?” Gabriel couldn’t help asking, even though the adult knew that the boy wouldn’t take any sign that he wasn’t taking him a hundred percent seriously all too well.

“I got a general idea,” Dean answered with a devilish grin that didn’t reach his eyes. It was a joke, but one that promised to turn completely serious as soon as it was necessary. It was bad enough that Sammy was hanging his heart on a guy they would never see again once their father returned, but to think that that same guy might betray the trust his younger brother was obviously putting into him just made Dean angry. The adult should better believe that he’d be in deep shit, if he gave the older Winchester the slightest reason to unleash that anger on him.

“I’ll consider myself threatened,” Gabriel stated with a serious nod. Not that the older Winchester had any chance to do anything to the archangel, but the kid had successfully made his point. Plus, it would make Dean feel better if he had the pretense that Gabriel took his threat to heart. Nobody got to hurt his little brother in any way without having to fear the wrath of mother-hen Dean-o.

“And now you listen to me and listen to me closely,” Gabriel added after giving the twelve year old a few moments to be smug about his victory of sorts, “My brother asked me to watch you two for the week and I agreed, because Castiel’s job is very demanding right now. As you might have noticed, Dean-o, we all get along pretty well and I’m trying to give you a good time. That’s all it is.”

In fact, the archangel was once more trying to convince himself that there really wasn’t anything more to the arrangement they had going on, just as much as he was trying to convince the preteen. When it came down to it, the Winchesters could hate him all they wanted – and they undoubtedly would as soon as they were grownups again – but Gabriel had to continue to live with himself, after all this was over.

“So, we’re staying for a week?” Dean frowned, taking the new information in. He had deflated noticeably and his tone had softened a little, however. The adult hadn’t said anything the older Winchester hadn’t liked and he actually hadn’t done anything bad, either. On the contrary, Gabriel had given them a pretty good day and even though Dean wouldn’t admit it, he had held his signed homerun ball tight for a good part of the night, having fallen asleep with the thing in his hand.

“Have you told Sammy?” the older Winchester asked when Gabriel simply nodded. A week with the adult didn’t sound too bad to Dean, especially if Castiel kept checking in with them as regularly as he had. Granted, a week was more than enough time for Sam to get by far too attached to the adult, but it wasn’t enough time for the eight year old to accept Gabriel as his new father figure or something. That wouldn’t be right, anyway. If anybody – other than their dad – was allowed to be anything like a father figure to Sammy then it was Dean… and maybe Bobby.

“Not yet,” the archangel admitted with a shrug. In fact, he hadn’t planned to tell the kids at all, but then he had let the words slip and of course Dean just had to be the most perceptive of things when he actually wasn’t meant to be. At least, it looked like the older Winchester was quite happy with what he had heard. Not that Gabriel had expected the preteen to shed any tears over getting rid of him at the end of the week.

“Good,” Dean replied with a definite nod, “Don’t tell him. It’ll break his heart and he’ll be whiny for the rest of the week.”

The older Winchester knew that there was no use telling Sammy that they would have to give up their temporary home again even a moment before he absolutely had to know. His younger brother always reacted badly, getting all mopey and pouty and distancing himself from everyone and everything. Telling him the uncomfortable truth before it was strictly necessary only ever gave Sam more time to be a brat about it. His younger brother wasn’t the kind of person who could simply enjoy things while they lasted, knowing there was a deadline to them, so Dean had no other choice but to keep Sam in the dark to make sure that he got the most out of the good things that – rarely – happened to them.

“He’ll find out eventually,” Gabriel pointed out, even though it suited him very well that the older Winchester didn’t want him to speak to Sam about the inevitable end of their time together. Call him a coward, but the archangel really didn’t fancy the thought of making the kid get all teary eyed on him. Hell, the thought of stopping Castiel from finding a cure and instead finding a way to make the spell permanent so he could keep the children had crossed Gabriel’s mind before. He had kicked himself repeatedly and very hard only for thinking of something as absolutely stupid as that right afterward, of course.

“Yeah, but by then it’s not your problem anymore,” Dean shrugged, trying to look completely casual. No, he wasn’t looking forward to his baby brother throwing a tantrum, but it would inevitably happen and when it did, the older Winchester knew how to pick up the pieces. It was always Dean who had to make sure that Sam was okay again, after all.

“I bow to your authority, in all things Sambo,” Gabriel told the older Winchester, bowing slightly while he was at it. The archangel knew that any other reaction would have gotten him in troubles with the twelve year old and Gabriel really could do without that. It was hard enough to gain little bits of Dean’s trust without getting into ultimately unnecessary arguments with him.

The older Winchester nodded contently, eyeing the waffles now that the conversation was over. He was a still growing near-teenager and needed all the sustenance he could get! That the waffles looked and smelled very good, did nothing to reduce his hunger either.

Dean knew that he could probably just ask the adult to give him one of the waffles, even if Sam hadn’t shown his face yet, but where was the fun in that? Instead he leaned against the kitchen counter nonchalantly and went for easy conversation to distract Gabriel with. “So, you ‘nd Cas are brothers then?”

The archangel raised his eyebrows at the sudden change of topic. He nodded with a smirk just a moment later, however. It was quite obvious that the kid was up to something and chances were pretty good, that that something was connected to the way he had been looking at the waffles. Gabriel was curious to see how exactly the older Winchester thought he’d be able to grab one of them from under his nose. Not that the archangel planned to keep the boy from taking what he wanted in the first place.

“Huh,” Dean replied, acting like he really was surprised by what he had just heard, “I could’ve sworn you were Cas’ bitch.”

To tell the truth, the older Winchester hadn’t thought for a second that Gabriel and Castiel were lovers. They didn’t act like they were lovers at all and Dean was sure that Cas was out of the other guy’s league, anyway. Them being friends or brothers, which they apparently really were, made a lot more sense, but voicing an assumption like that wouldn’t have had the sort of effect on the adult that the older Winchester had wanted to achieve.

Even though Gabriel had been waiting for Dean to make his move, it still caught him by surprise when he did. Or rather, the archangel hadn’t expected anything like what the kid had just thrown at him. The huffing and puffing that ensued was by no means an act, it apparently was exactly what the older Winchester had been waiting for, however.

Dean quickly grabbed a waffle from the plate, while Gabriel was too busy sputtering and trying to come up with something to say, and licked a thick stripe of saliva over it. Grinning contently, the older Winchester declared: “It’s mine now!”

Dean was tempted to stick his tongue out at the adult for good measure, but he was much too mature to do that. Instead he just took his hard-earned waffle over to the table and plopped down on one of the comfortable chairs. The older Winchester made sure to take small bites of his prize, so he’d still have something to wave under Sammy’s nose, as soon as his younger brother joined them in the kitchen.

“I’m telling you one thing, you brat,” Gabriel stated, pointing his index finger at the boy, “If anything, Castiel would be my bitch!”

Dean could steal just about anything he wanted from the apartment and the archangel wouldn’t really care. There was absolutely nothing around that he couldn’t replace with a snap of his fingers. Gabriel also didn’t care if Dean thought he might be gay – which was partly true, though he was much more omni-sexual, putting very few limits to his sexuality - but he wouldn’t let the brat accuse him of being the submissive part in any kind of relationship he might have with Castiel.

“Whatever,” Dean replied casually, smirking at the adult’s indignant expression. After behaving like a little angel for their babysitter for nearly three whole days, it was about time that the older Winchester let him have a taste of what this could be like, if he chose to give Gabriel hell!

“I already got a waffle!” the twelve year old suddenly exclaimed braggingly, announcing the arrival of his younger brother with it.

“Good for you,” Sam replied, trying to look like he didn’t care at all. The way his eyes were drawn to Gabriel to confirm that there were still enough waffles left, gave away that he was a little jealous. The younger Winchester didn’t have to wait for long until the archangel grabbed the rest of the waffles and the maple syrup and put them onto the table, however.

“I thought of something, I’d like to do,” Sam announced, as soon as he had secured his own waffle supply. He ignored that Dean immediately rolled his eyes - no doubt expecting a suggestion about going to museums or something alike – and instead focused on the way Gabriel looked at him encouragingly. Seeing the adult look at him like that helped with the nervousness a bit.

“It’s… it’s nearly… and we never…” the younger Winchester stammered, suddenly a little insecure about saying what he wanted. The adult had never given him any reason to think that he couldn’t just voice his preferences however, so he steeled himself and quickly explained: “It’s nearly Halloween and we never go trick or treating and I’d like to do that.”

All of a sudden, the archangel had the expectant eyes of both boys on him. There probably was a very good reason for why the Winchesters weren’t into Halloween and trick or treating under normal circumstances, but as things were all that didn’t count for them anymore. Gabriel was all too willing to give the little munchkin what he had just asked for, anyway.

“Alright guys, I guess we’ll go shopping then.”


	11. Chapter 11

**11**

 

The toy store Gabriel had chosen to take the Winchesters to wasn’t exactly huge, but it had a very decent selection of Halloween costumes for younger and older children and their guardians. It simply was perfect.

“So, any ideas what costumes you’re looking for?” the archangel asked around the lollipop he had popped into his mouth, right after he had parked the car. The shop really wasn’t big enough for them to have every costume known to man, but if the boys told him what they were hoping to find, Gabriel could make sure that they incidentally had just that, with at least one in their size.

“Something cool,” Dean answered with a shrug, looking at the clothes rails in front of them with a thoughtful expression. The only thing the older Winchester was sure about was that he wanted a costume that couldn’t be called ‘cute’ under any circumstances. It’d have to be something awesome and manly. Most likely, with lots of weapons and fake blood.

“This was your idea, Sambo,” Gabriel pointed out, after the older boy had left them behind to go on the search for the ultimate badass costume. It would be pretty damn hilarious if Dean, of all people, went for a werewolf costume or something alike. “I thought for sure you’d have your plan all made up.”

Sam shook his head, looking at the floor, which made his bangs hang over his eyes. It was strange and almost laughable how half the time the kid seemed to only keep his hair longer, so he could hide behind it. However, Gabriel wasn’t really willing to have another piece of his heart shattered by some issue or other the munchkin was dealing with in the middle of a toy store. So, the archangel decided not to get to the bottom of the boy’s behavior this time and instead just put a hand against his back reassuringly, leading him toward the costumes meant for kids his age.

“Just say stop when you see something you like,” Gabriel instructed, starting to flip through the plastic covered costumes on display. Though, he never took his other hand off Sam’s back and without realizing it, even started to rub the kid’s shoulder blade soothingly. The archangel still didn’t know what was weighing down the tiniest Weechester this time around and he was hoping to resolve the situation without actually finding out. A kid as little as Sam shouldn’t have to carry the weight of the world as he obviously did, but to be quite honest, the adult wasn’t exactly built to do that, either. When God had handed out psychological resilience, he had clearly forgotten Gabriel. Though, it was questionable, if any of the archangels were adequately equipped in that department. They all had the tendency to crack under heavy pressure – not to mention the general anger issues - even if the way it showed was quite different for each and every one of them.

“I… dad never allows us to go out for Halloween,” Sam suddenly mumbled, looking up at Gabriel from under his bangs. He was looking at all the costumes the adult was showing him, but was a little distracted by his want to explain why he actually hadn’t thought any further than simply wanting to go trick or treating.

“So, you really just wanted to do something you knew exactly John wouldn’t allow?” the archangel chuckled, ruffling the boy’s hair affectionately. “Way to start puberty early, kiddo!”

In daddy Winchester’s defense, it had to be said that he had had pretty good reasons to keep the boys away from all things Halloween. The fact that they had never been allowed to just go and be kids at one of those holidays that were just made for that purpose – the way it was interpreted by most people in this day and age, anyway – explained a lot about the younger Winchester’s wish to do just that, however.

“No, no!” Sam protested weakly. He hadn’t meant to rebel against their father, but the boy still had to admit that he had seen a chance to get something their dad wouldn’t allow and had taken it. “I… I wanted to do something… normal… that looks like fun… didn’t think further than that.”

“Y’know, munchkin, most people enjoy Halloween, because it gives them an excuse to not be normal for a day,” Gabriel pointed out, ignoring the disapproving look the eight year old shot his way for the nickname. The kid was a munchkin, if he liked it or not. The archangel would at least make an attempt to mostly stick to their agreed on nicknames as much as possible in the future, though.

“We’re not most people,” Sam huffed. He was only repeating something he had heard from his father and brother numerous times before, however. Every time the younger Winchester brought up something he really wanted to do because everyone else was doing it too, he usually got shot down with those words or a variation of them. In this case, the argument worked in his favor for once.

“No, you really aren’t,” Gabriel agreed with a half-smile. It wasn’t like Sam would know it that moment, but they were even further from most people than he believed and definitely not in a way that was good for their mental or physical health.

“Hey, Sammy, look! I found something for you!” Dean suddenly exclaimed. He had sneaked up behind his younger brother and the adult, only announcing his presence when he had been very close already. It sure had helped that the two had had a conversation going, otherwise the older Winchester might not have gotten the chance to get this close to his brother without being spotted.

Sam turned around, startled by his older brother’s sudden appearance. Coming face to face with the little ‘surprise’ Dean had prepared for him, the eight year old nearly jumped out of his skin. The scream that came from the younger Winchester’s throat wasn’t very loud, but the way he hid behind Gabriel, grabbing fistfuls of the adult’s shirt made it perfectly clear just how much his older brother had just managed to scare him.

Dean of course looked smug and very satisfied with the outcome of his little prank as he pulled the clown mask from his head. Gabriel just couldn’t help himself, he had to laugh. Dammit, the archangel had been a trickster for ages and he always could appreciate a good prank when he saw one! Unfortunately, neither Dean nor Gabriel managed to stop laughing until Sam had already stormed off.

“He’ll come back in a minute,” the older Winchester commented casually, even though his eyes never stopped scanning the place for any signs of his brother, “He always does.”

Dean knew that Sammy never ran away for long. Hell, he never even ran far. Sometimes it still worried the older Winchester that his baby brother was running at all; it obviously didn’t worry him enough to stop him from giving Sam reasons to run, however. Dean was sure that his brother would learn to be harder and not let things get to him that much eventually. The older Winchester had learned that lesson years ago, after all.

After a short conversation during which the archangel found out that Dean was thinking about dressing up as a monster hunter – oh the irony – Gabriel went looking for the younger boy, anyway. The older Winchester was most likely right and the archangel was certain that Sam had never even come close to leaving the building, but for some reason he couldn’t – and didn’t want to – explain, Gabriel felt a little guilty about laughing at the kid when he had been obviously scared.

The archangel would have been blind not to notice that the boy was latching on to him whenever he could, so really Gabriel shouldn’t have been surprised by Sam’s strong reaction to being laughed at by both his older brother and their babysitter. The archangel had never claimed that he was particularly mindful of other people’s feelings, but he really wished he could have been in this case. Gabriel usually wasn’t one who felt guilty easily, but he had a soft spot for small children and Sam seemed to be able to tug at all his heartstrings even more easily than most.

“Hey, munchkin,” Gabriel said silently, giving his voice a rueful note.

The eight year old might have looked like he was angry, sitting on one of those benches the shop provided with his arms crossed in front of his chest, but the energy he gave off spoke another language entirely. There was very little actual anger, instead Sam mostly felt betrayed, sad and a little left alone. All in all, the younger Winchester was clearly angsting, but putting up the façade of righteous anger to make himself look stronger.

“It’s Sam!” the boy replied petulantly, turning away from the adult when Gabriel approached him and sat down next to him. The pout that had appeared on Sam’s face was quite adorable actually, not that the archangel would have voiced that thought.

“So, you don’t like clowns, huh?” Gabriel asked casually, twirling the fresh lollipop he had pulled from his pocket between his fingers. He had to drop the candy just a moment later when Sam shot up from his seat to storm off once more, however.

“Woah, kiddo, I’m not making fun of you,” the archangel stated seriously, grabbing the boy’s arm and pulling him back down again. So, Gabriel had chosen the wrong thing to say, but that didn’t mean that he deserved to have to go on another search for the younger Winchester. “Everybody is scared of something, it’s only normal.”

Sam pressed his lips into a thin line. He turned his head to look back at the adult for the first time since the archangel had found him, though.

“Yeah, I’m deadly scared of horses for example,” the archangel went on speaking. It was clearly a good sign that the younger Winchester was willing to listen to him, so he might as well give the boy a reason to keep listening. “Stallions, actually. Not on pictures or on TV, but real ones. They absolutely give me the creeps when they get close to me!”

It scared Gabriel a little that he had come very close to admitting that he was deadly afraid of his older brothers – as much as he still loved them – but he quickly pushed the thought away. He was only trying to make Sam feel better and bringing up a family more screwed up than the one the kid had would have been a great way to do that. That was the only reason why he would have shared something like that with one of the Winchesters!Not touchy feely caring and attachment towards the Winchester brothers, not that at all.

“Really?” Sam asked with a deep frown. He hadn’t seen many horses up close, but he had never thought of them as scary. He also didn’t quite understand why a stallion would be scarier than a mare, since they basically looked the same. The younger Winchester wanted to believe that the adult had just told him something meaningful because they were friends, however. He had wanted to be Gabriel’s friend ever since the first day they had met and that wish hadn’t gone away over time. If anything, it had become stronger.

“Promise and it’s by far not the only thing I’m afraid of,” the archangel admitted with a light shrug. He wasn’t going to go into any details unless he had to, however. There were a few more of his more or less harmless fears that he could have shared with the kid, but he wasn’t too keen on doing that if he didn’t have to.

“I just,” Sam sighed deeply before speaking on, “Didn’t wanna look weak.”

The younger Winchester wasn’t all that mad at his brother for playing that prank on him, but it had completely surprised him and the clown mask had scared him enough to make him act like a little scared girl in front of Dean and Gabriel.

“I swear to all that’s holy to me, munchkin, I didn’t think you were weak for a second,” Gabriel stated seriously, wrapping an arm around Sam’s shoulders and squeezing for good measure. “I just thought Dean-o’s prank was funny.”

“That’s so much better,” Sam huffed. He didn’t pull away and didn’t protest against the use of the nickname however, which let the archangel know that he wasn’t all that upset anymore. The younger Winchester could admit that he might have laughed too, if Dean had pranked anyone but him with the same thing. Hearing that the adult hadn’t laughed at him and his inherit fear of clowns as much as he had laughed at the prank definitely made Sam feel better, too.

“Oh, it will be once we get your bratty bro back for this,” Gabriel smirked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “What do you think?”

The archangel had every intention of helping the eight year old come up with something to take his revenge on his older brother, if Sam wanted him to. Granted, the Trickster’s brand of humor might not be applicable to their little brotherly prank war, but there were enough things Gabriel could come up with that were essentially harmless.

A few moments later the younger Winchester gave the adult a small grin and nodded his consent. He liked the idea of having some help and he also liked the idea of working with Gabriel, so it hadn’t been a hard decision to make.

“Hey, Sammy, look! I found something for you! It’s freaking awesome!” Dean yelled excitedly as soon as he spotted his younger brother and their adult companion; He then waved the plastic bag with the costume he had found around in front of his brother’s face. The twelve year old had spent some time looking for something Sammy would like before he had gone to look for him, taking his peace offering with him. “C’mon, you like ‘Legend of Zelda’!”

“It’s cool,” Sam admitted, looking at the Link costume his older brother was offering to him. In fact, it was pretty damn perfect.

“Yeah? Awesome!” Dean exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear when his brother took the bag from him and accepted the apology with it. It was an unspoken rule between them that apologies didn’t have to be spoken as long as there was a peace offering that got accepted. “Just gotta get you a sword now. I need some weapons too, anyway.”

They left the shop an hour later. The two boys were very happy with their chosen costumes and Gabriel was satisfied with another day’s work of giving the kids some of the childhood experiences they had been lacking before.


	12. Chapter 12

**12**

 

Both Winchesters had gone to bed hours ago, but Gabriel hadn’t seen a reason to retire for the night. Sure, he usually enjoyed the angel equivalent of sleep, but there were too many things on his mind. He’d probably only end up giving himself nightmares as things were. Being an angel meant that he generally was in full control of his dreams, but in times like these when he couldn’t manage his thoughts, he lost control over the images his resting mind would conjure up as well.

There was no use denying it, Gabriel was getting too attached to the Winchesters. Hell, he was already too attached and he didn’t want to let the kids go back to the impossible situation they had come from. The archangel had thought that he understood the brothers as much as it was possible to understand them before they had been children in his care. He had seen bits and pieces of their lives growing up, but seeing glimpses from the outside was nothing like having the horrid truth being slapped right in your face. He had thought he could judge them for making all the wrong decisions and acting stupid in general. Now Gabriel knew that he hadn’t even had half the information he would have needed to really understand why each one of them had made decisions he had thought were so condemnable before.

Gabriel also had to admit that beyond the superficial similarities, Sam and Dean didn’t have much in common with Lucifer and Michael after all. In fact, they had more in common with what the archangel would have wished his brothers had been like, than they did with what they actually were like. Hell, if Michael had been anything like Dean, he would have never cast his brother down to the cage and if Lucifer had been anything like Sam, he would have found it in him to love humans as their father has asked with no problem. Maybe they would have let all of heaven burn around them, but they would have stuck together to the end.

The archangel sighed deeply and got up from the sofa, to grab his cell phone from the kitchen counter. There were a couple of people who might have sent him a text message, even at this time of the night, but he hadn’t expected Castiel of all people to be one of them. Actually, Gabriel hadn’t thought that his little brother would even know what a text message was. However, he was holding the evidence that Cassy knew more than he had given him credit for in his hand.

“Yeah, right, forget it,” Gabriel mumbled to himself with a huff, once he saw that the message only had an address in it. Like he was going to just up and follow any instructions Castiel was sending him! The archangel was playing babysitter for the Weechesters and that was that. He had no reason or obligation to get involved into anything more than simple child watching and entertaining duties!

It wasn’t more than a minute later that Gabriel snapped himself to the address his brother had sent to him, anyway. He’d just add it to the list of reasons why he was going to punish Castiel later, if the seraph lived the see the end of the apocalypse.

The archangel kept himself in the shadows, using the powers that his status as a Norse god granted him, to mask his angelic presence completely. Castiel would hardly be thrown by the Loki disguise Gabriel had put up once more and Tarot had no business knowing that a long lost archangel was watching him being interrogated. If either one of the two other angels present noticed that Gabriel was even there, they didn’t give any indication of it. From the looks of it, it was highly doubtful that Tarot was in the condition to be very perceptive, however. The archangel couldn’t exactly blame him for that, either. Being trapped in a ring of holy fire alone was unnerving, to say the least and that seemed to be only the beginning of the problems the angel was having.

Tarot was sitting on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees and rocking himself forward and backward gently. Gabriel couldn’t deny that he felt the urge to just extinguish the fire and comfort his clearly distraught brother. It didn’t help that the seraph’s vessel looked like he had hardly left his teenager years behind him, his sandy blonde hair hanging over his face as he mumbled mostly meaningless words in a couple of different languages.

Castiel’s eyes met Gabriel’s for a short moment. It was obvious that the seraph had been waiting for his older brother to arrive before he was going to question the trapped angel. The archangel pressed his lips into a thin line and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Gabriel was by no means happy with being dragged even deeper into any of this and he would let Castiel know exactly what he thought about all of it as soon as he got the chance to.

“Have you put a spell on Sam and Dean Winchester?” Castiel asked in a sharp tone, his voice echoing around the mostly empty abandoned production hall they were in. Tarot flinched violently and tried to make himself look even smaller. His mumbling had stopped abruptly, but he never stopped the rocking motion he was trying to draw some sort of comfort from. It didn’t exactly look like it was working.

“What kind of spell did you use?” Castiel went on with his interrogation, repeating both his questions two more times, even though the only reaction he got out of the panicking angel, was more flinching and rocking.

Gabriel was about to tell his dark-haired brother to stop it already and leave it be, since he clearly wasn’t getting anywhere, when Tarot started to mumble once more. This time around the words he spoke made a little more sense than before, however.

“It’s not right,” the blonde angel murmured, raising his head just a little. He might have gotten a good view on Castiel’s shoes instead of only his own knees, to be exact. “I told him. I tried to. It’s not right. Time needs to flow. It goes forward… it… it’s not right.”

Gabriel already felt the stress induced migraine coming and he had little hope that it would get better, the longer he stood there listening to his brother’s talk. Tarot might not have answered either one of Castiel’s questions directly, but it was pretty obvious what the answer to the first question was. Not that there had been that much doubt about the sandy haired seraph being the perpetrator before. He was the only angel who was obsessed with all things time-related, after all.

“What kind of spell did you use?” Castiel repeated. The seraph’s voice was still gruff, if not quite as harsh as before. It didn’t make much of a difference, however. Tarot still flinched as if he had been slapped and pulled his knees closer.

“Tell me how to reverse it!” Castiel demanded when he didn’t get an answer once more. With the state his brother was in, the trench coat clad seraph realized that he had to concentrate on the most important questions and press for the answers to those.

“It will pass,” Tarot replied quietly after a few long moments of silence, “Time will catch up. It will pass.”

The stony expression on Castiel’s face said all too clearly, what he thought of his brother’s statement. It wasn’t what he had wanted to hear, despite the sinking feeling that Tarot might have spoken the truth. The dark-haired angel had to make sure.

“Tell me how to reverse it,” Castiel repeated his demand, making sure not to miss even the tiniest flicker of emotion his brother was showing.

“I can’t. Zachariah…” the sandy-haired angel had to stop speaking, as he flinched violently once more at the mention of the older angel. He managed to pull himself together and speak on with surprising clarity, however. “He added… something… to make them forget about angels and demons.”

Castiel gave a tight nod and turned around, starting to walk away. He was certain that he had learned everything he could from his brother, so there was no use wasting more time. Even if the dark-haired angel had to accept that they would have to let the spell the Winchesters were under run its course, there were still other things he had to do. Castiel had not given up on finding their father and ending the apocalypse that way, just yet.

“Don’t!” Tarot suddenly yelled, scrambling to his knees and extending his arm toward the other angel, as far as the ring of holy fire would allow him to. “Don’t leave me here like this! I can’t… I can’t go back!”

The sandy-haired seraph knew that he would be taken in for questioning again, as soon as anyone caught wind of him having spent any time around the traitor Castiel, as the other angels called their blue-eyed brother these days. The very thought of being at Zachariah’s mercy yet again, made Tarot shake violently once more.

“I will tell them everything, Castiel! I don’t want to, but I will! They have made me talk before!” the angel added, his voice holding even more desperation than before, if it was even possible.

“You have no new information they require,” Castiel pointed out in a nearly gentle tone. It was as obvious that he was trying to offer what little comfort he could to their distraught brother. As things were, it was obvious that it wasn’t working in the slightest.

“They don’t know that!” Tarot cried, “Just kill me now.”

The seraph had little to no hope to escape with even the last little bit of his personality or sanity intact, if Zachariah got his claws into him once more. It was a fate worse than death that Tarot could clearly see in his nearer future.

“It would be an act of mercy, brother. I’m begging you!” the sandy-haired angel added in a clearly hysterical voice. Castiel didn’t have to say the words for Tarot to know that his brother wasn’t going to grant his wish, however.

The sandy-haired angel steeled himself, trying to get his trembling under control. Taking a leap over a ring of holy fire was supposedly one of the most painful ways to die for an angel, but it was the only option left to him all the same.

Tarot hadn’t even taken one step, when a sudden gust of wind extinguished the flames. An aborted confused noise was the only sound that came over the seraph’s lips before his unconscious body dropped to the floor.

“You have crossed the line, Castiel!” Gabriel stated, his voice thunderous, his face stony. “You are lucky I am not smiting your stupid ass right here right now!”

Castiel might not have been the one the archangel was really mad at, but he was the only one around to rage at. If Gabriel could have, he would have punished Zachariah for every last little thing he had ever done to Tarot or any other angel who hadn’t wanted to play his game. He would have given Michael a piece of his mind, for ever allowing anything this fucked up to happen to any angel supposedly under his protection. The archangel couldn’t allow himself to linger on these thoughts, however. He couldn’t afford to get sucked into their family’s issues and the entire apocalypse, any more than he already was! Castiel knew what Gabriel thought about all of this and had completely disregarded his whishes when he had asked him to come and witness all this!

“This is not my business and it will never again be my business!” the archangel growled, turning his back on Castiel and their unconscious brother on the floor, “Clean up this mess however you see fit and don’t you dare to ever speak a word of any of this to me again!”

 

* * *

 

 

Gabriel had the presence of mind to reappear outside of the entrance door to the apartment he was sharing with the two Winchesters. It was hardly 4 am. so the precaution might have very well been for nothing. However, the two boys already waiting for the archangel on the other side of the door, prove his suspicions that one of them – read: Sam – might have woken up while he was gone.

Dean narrowed his eyes at the adult immediately, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Where the fuck have you been?” the older Winchester demanded to know. His younger brother had woken him up, close to panic, because Gabriel had been missing. Dean had spent some time trying to calm the eight year old down. Logically, both of them had known that Gabriel would hardly leave his own apartment behind just like that. The highly uncomfortable thought that they didn’t have a phone number to contact Cas with, in case the other adult never returned, had made the waiting period very hard for the older Winchester, however.

“Dean,” Sam whispered, pulling on the sleeve of his older brother’s pajamas, nodding toward Gabriel who was just standing in the doorway looking at them. The adult hadn’t said a word and he didn’t look like he had gone on a joyride without them.

“I had things to attend to,” Gabriel finally spoke, closing his eyes for a short moment, trying to shake off all the things he couldn’t and didn’t want to explain to the boys. The archangel opened his eyes again to find Sam standing right in front of him, looking up to him quizzically. Gabriel never managed to say another word before the younger Winchester had already wrapped his arms around him tightly.

The worry was rolling off the eight year old in waves, but there was also the urge to somehow make everything better and offer comfort. Gabriel didn’t often feel like crying, but in that moment he definitely did. The archangel hugged the little Winchester back wordlessly, just holding the kid like he was being held.

Dean sighed deeply and approached the other two, putting one hand on Sammy’s shoulder and one on Gabriel’s. If the adult’s fake smile was somewhat watery, the older Winchester didn’t comment on it.


	13. Chapter 13

**13**

 

It was an unspoken understanding between Gabriel and the older Winchester that they wouldn’t talk about the things that had happened the previous night. Sam was the only one of them who had a hard time not bringing the topic up, but in this particular case, the archangel didn’t want to encourage the kid to speak his mind. Even if Gabriel wouldn’t have admitted it under torture, the events he had witnessed had touched him deeply.

It was a good thing that the two boys had decided that they wanted to help prepare the breakfast that day, so the archangel wasn’t on his own, with his thoughts in the kitchen. Watching Sam and Dean argue over the matter of sausages versus ham to go with the hash browns they had agreed they wanted, was amusing to say the least.

“I will cook it and I want sausages!” the older Winchester finally stated in a decisive tone. The twelve year old made a point to stand completely straight, raising to his full height and trying to stare his younger brother down. They had to settle this dispute somehow and they were going to settle it by Dean winning!

“I could cook, too,” Sam countered, crossing his arms in front of his chest immediately when it became clear that his brother was trying to show dominance through body language. Granted, the eight year old had little experience in the kitchen, most of the places they stayed at had nothing in the way of a real kitchen, but it wasn’t as if Dean had had that much more practice. Though, if it was about cooking ramen noodles or instant soup, Sam was willing to admit that his brother was an expert.

“No, you can’t, ‘cause I’ve got the spatula!” Dean smirked, waving the spatula at his younger brother victoriously. The older Winchester took his chance to grab the package of sausages they had found in Gabriel’s fridge earlier, while Sam was busy pouting. Of course, Dean had to rub salt into the wounds while they were still fresh. “Chef chooses the meal, spectator shuts his cake hole!”

“Dean!” Sam whined, stretching his brother’s name for all it was worth. The eight year old looked to the archangel for support for a moment before he quickly looked away again. The adult had enough of his own trouble without being bothered with their petty fight. Gabriel hadn’t told them anything about what had happened the previous night, but it was obvious that it bothered him. The younger Winchester knew better than to bother an adult when they were busy with their own problems.

“Tomorrow then, Sambo,” Gabriel commented with a small grin, ruffling the kid’s hair for good measure. Honestly, if Sam didn’t want to get his hair ruffled all the time, he shouldn’t keep it at this perfectly ruffle-able length!

“Okay,” the younger Winchester readily agreed. He gave the adult a smile that showed his dimples, even if it was a little forced. Sam just wanted to help Gabriel feel better by being a good kid, not causing trouble and not talking back. The strategy worked with their father most of the time, though it was very hard to please John Winchester at times. Not that the eight year old was always trying to please him, but he did try a lot more often than his dad gave him credit for.

“You’re a good kid,” Gabriel whispered too silently for Dean to hear over the sizzling of the sausages and hash browns in the pans. Sam’s brilliant smile was completely real this time and it didn’t even waver as the archangel ruffled his hair once more.

Their breakfast was just about to be ready, when suddenly the doorbell rung. The archangel shrugged when the boys looked at him expectantly and turned to go and answer the door.

“Look at that, little bro knows how to use a doorbell,” Gabriel chuckled humorlessly, stepping aside to let Castiel enter. The archangel couldn’t say that he was pleased to see his brother again this soon, but he knew that the two children, Dean especially, would be. It also had to be noted that Castiel had been standing in front of the door, looking more awkward than Gabriel had ever seen him before and that really meant something.

“The mechanism is not very complicated,” the seraph replied, inclining his head as he walked past his older brother. Castiel had had his doubts about paying his brother and their two human charges a visit, but it had stood to reason that keeping his distance and possibly upsetting Dean, would in turn anger Gabriel even more. Castiel knew he had to tread carefully.

“Cas! You’re having breakfast with us!” Dean exclaimed happily and interrupted the heavy silence with it. The older Winchester wasn’t stupid. He realized something was going on between the two adults. The twelve year old just chose to ignore it, in favor of making sure that Castiel stayed for a while. The dark-haired adult wouldn’t get out of eating something this time! Dean had personally prepared their breakfast and Castiel would have no choice but to at least try everything.

“Sammy! We need a fourth plate!” Dean yelled back toward the kitchen to his younger brother. All the shots had been called already, so now the adults simply had to go along with it.

Gabriel shook his head slightly, but went back toward the kitchen. He wasn’t going to tell Castiel to leave, because the one suffering the most from it would be Dean. The kid hadn’t done anything to deserve that and the archangel wouldn’t let the preteen’s feelings be collateral damage in a dispute between himself and Castiel.

Surprisingly enough, the seraph had the presence of mind not to say anything about not requiring sustenance, when the older Winchester put a plate in front of him. Castiel felt that he was treading on thin ice already and was trying to avoid angering his brother yet again. The angel had to admit the only reason he had contacted Gabriel the previous night had been to let the archangel witness first hand what the apocalypse was doing to their brothers, especially the ones unwilling to take a side. Castiel knew that he had pushed his luck and he couldn’t help but think that he would have never done anything so clearly out of line before he had met Dean and to a lesser extent Sam.

“It is very enjoyable,” the dark-haired adult commented, after trying the first bite of the sausage the older Winchester had put on his plate. The seraph preferred the taste to the chili peppers he had tried. However, he wouldn’t have seen a reason to eat most of the sausage and then go on to the hash browns, if it hadn’t been for the expectant looks Dean was shooting him and the satisfied expression on the boy’s face that always appeared when Castiel showed his enjoyment of the meal.

Gabriel grinned slightly, watching the scene. He never met his brother’s eyes directly or made an effort to talk to him, however. Not that any of them got much of a chance to speak to Castiel, when Dean was determined to fill the seraph in on every last little thing he hadn’t been present for.

“I’ll show you my room!” the older Winchester suddenly decided, nearly jumping off his chair in his eagerness. He wasn’t going to have the room for much longer, but that didn’t mean that Dean liked it any less. Castiel had to see it at least once!

“I cooked, so Sammy will do the dishes,” the twelve year old added on an afterthought, giving his little brother a big grin. Sometimes teasing Sammy was just way too much fun and it was one of Dean’s older brother duties, anyway.

Sam opened his mouth to give a fitting reply to that, but after a moment of consideration he just nodded without saying a word. The younger Winchester didn’t want to start an argument when the tension between Castiel and Gabriel hung so heavily in the air. Sam also didn’t want to ruin Cas’ visit for his brother. It wasn’t like he minded doing the dishes, anyway. Besides, there’d be a time to tell Dean exactly what Sam had thought of this later.

“You don’t have to let your brother get away with anything for my sake, munchkin,” Gabriel commented, as soon as the older Winchester had quite literally dragged Castiel to his room and the archangel was left alone with the eight year old. It was awfully nice of the kid to consider the archangel’s feelings like that, but it also made Gabriel uncomfortable. The archangel’s attachment to the Winchester boys, especially the younger one, was reaching levels he hadn’t even dreamed were possible.

“’S no big deal,” Sam mumbled, collecting the dishes and cutlery to load the dishwasher. Doing the dishes without making a fuss was even less of a big deal, with a dishwasher involved, really.

Gabriel shook his head fondly and huffed out a laugh, grabbing the last few pieces the younger Winchester hadn’t been able to carry safely in one go. Between the two of them, it only took a very short time to stow all the dirty dishes away. The archangel nearly wished that they had more chores to busy themselves with together, when Sam looked up at him from under his bangs with a very hard to read expression. Whatever the kid had to say, Gabriel probably wouldn’t like it that much. That was what the archangel read from the kid’s all too nervous expression, anyway. What the younger Winchester actually had to say came as a surprise, however.

“It’ll be okay, you know?” Sam finally managed to say trying, but failing to smile encouragingly. “You… you ‘nd Cas… you’re brothers and… I’m mad at Dean all the time, but he’s my brother and that’s more important… and I love him no matter what.”

Gabriel blinked a few times dumbly, just trying to take everything the kid had just said in. The younger Winchester had just hit damn close to the bull’s-eye without having an inkling of an idea of what everything was really about. The archangel had known how perceptive and good at puzzling things together Sam could be, from the months the younger Winchester had spent hunting him after the Broward County incident. If he had been a lesser trickster, he would have been caught and staked long before he had chosen to get into contact with the hunter. Having those very abilities used on Gabriel – from a little kid version of Sam, no less – in an attempt to comfort him, was both very disarming and heartwarming.

“That’s why you’re my favorite, Sambo,” the archangel stated before his inner censor could stop the words from leaving his mouth. The younger Winchester just stared at Gabriel with wide eyes, looking like the little confession had thoroughly shocked him. “Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! Not like I’d tell Dean-o, or treat him any different because of it.”

Honestly, Dean was a great kid, too. He was loudmouthed and snarky, but he was a very brave boy who was constantly trying to protect his little brother. There was nothing to dislike about the older Winchester – at least not about his twelve year old self – but the archangel had just made a better connection to the younger brother, there was simply no use denying it.

“That’s not…” Sam shook his head, trying to get a better grip on his voice and find the right words to say. What he came up with in the end was, “Dean is everyone’s favorite.”

Gabriel bowed down to hug the eight year old tightly. Honestly, he wasn’t so much of a touchy-feely guy that he constantly had to hug everyone, but it looked like the archangel was making an exception for the Sampaloompa.

“Let’s just say, I’m a total Sam fan.”

 

* * *

 

 

There weren’t that many things that Dean had to show to Castiel. Most of the stuff in his room was only temporarily his. Not that it kept him from pointing out how the TV set had cable and giving a short list of all the things he had been able to watch in the past few days. It didn’t seem like Castiel knew anything much about the things the older Winchester was talking about, though.

“Oh right, that’s really awesome!” Dean exclaimed, kneeling down next to his duffle bag to find his homerun ball. He had put it in there just in case they’d have to leave Gabriel’s place quickly. He didn’t want to forget to take it along under any circumstances. It wouldn’t have been the first time that some personal thing or another got lost due to a hasty relocation.

“It’s even signed! The guy was totally nice, too. You should have seen it, Cas,” the older Winchester babbled on, allowing the adult to hold the ball so he could get a better look at it, “Gabriel just walked up to the guy and offered him a Pepsi and asked him to sign the ball and he totally did.”

The seraph nodded along dutifully, examining the writing on the ball. It apparently was something very special, even if Castiel couldn’t completely follow. He knew that humans made it a habit to collect signatures of people they looked up to, but knowing the facts didn’t mean that the angel could comprehend the feelings that drove people to do such things.

“What’s wrong between you and Gabriel, anyway?” Dean asked all of a sudden, changing the topic so quickly that Castiel once more, had a hard time following.

The seraph sincerely doubted that his brother would appreciate him sharing the story of what had happened with one of their little charges. Presenting the mere facts to Dean didn’t sound like a bad idea, however. “I have pushed him into something without consulting him on the matter first.”

The older Winchester frowned thoughtfully for a moment before he shrugged lightly. “It’s the job of an older brother to make the hard decisions. I bet you had your reasons.”

Castiel nodded which earned him a smile from Dean. However, the older Winchester’s logic was flawed and the seraph thought it was his duty as the guardian to inform the twelve year old of it. “Actually, Gabriel is the older brother.”

“That’s not okay then,” Dean replied in a reprimanding tone. It took a few more moments before shock set in on his face as it dawned at him that Castiel had just said, that the significantly shorter Gabriel was his older brother. That should better not be some sort of foreshadowing, dammit!


	14. Chapter 14

**14**

 

“Should’ve walked this time,” Dean muttered, once more sitting in the passenger’s seat of Gabriel’s stupid, little, green VW Beetle. In fact, this time around the car was even more stupid in the older Winchester’s eyes. It was bringing them to a museum of all places!

Honestly, Dean had started out not having an exactly high opinion of the adult, but the twelve year old liked Gabriel well enough and he had some trust in the man’s ability to choose fun activities for them. Then of course the jerk had announced that they should go get their jackets, because they were going to the museum. Sammy, the big nerd, had been excited immediately, which had been the only thing that kept Dean from voicing his displeasure up to this point.

“You know, Dean-o, just because we’re driving already, doesn’t mean I can’t pull over and let you have your way,” Gabriel pointed out in an amused tone. The archangel was certain that the older Winchester had waited with his complaints until they were already on the way, so the adult wasn’t so likely to cancel the trip altogether and thus, taking something from Sam that the eight year old clearly wanted. Of course, not complaining at all wasn’t an option to the preteen.

“Yeah? Fine, do it! Then I will only get there when it’s time to go home again!” Dean replied challengingly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Actually, walking to the museum while Sam and Gabriel got their geek on looking at the exhibits was something the older Winchester would have been able to live with. Hell, he even might have preferred that to having to look at all the boring paintings and old vases or whatever else boring stuff they put into museums.

“Dean, please!” Sam begged from the backseat, bringing the puppy dog eyes on full force as soon as his older brother turned to look at him. The eight year old was very close to saying that they didn’t have to go to a museum for him, if his brother so clearly didn’t want to. At the same time, the younger Winchester really wanted to see what museum Gabriel was taking them to. He always looked forward to learning new things, no matter what the exhibition actually was about.

“Okay, Sammy,” Dean sighed, giving his little brother a small smile. The older Winchester had seen how close Sam was to giving up on something he really liked for his sake and Dean couldn’t let it get to that. He was the older brother and that meant that it was his job to care for his baby brother. If that meant Dean had to do without something or that he had to do something he didn’t like, that was too bad, because it was his duty. However, the older Winchester still had to make sure that nobody thought of him as a big softie, so he turned back toward Gabriel and narrowed his eyes and said: “But you can’t make me enjoy it!”

“Don’t be so sure about that one, Dean-o,” the archangel retorted, smirking as he continued to drive toward the museum. He had discovered it over a quick search for good things for kids to do. They had their plans for Saturday evening, but it was only Thursday afternoon, so they still had some time to fill with other awesome childhood experiences the boys had missed before. What Gabriel had found should fit the bill.

“Whatever,” Dean huffed out with a humorless laugh. A museum was a museum and boring by definition. That was one of the reasons why the older Winchester was usually quite glad that their dad never liked them to go along on any field trips their current schools might be planning. Sometimes, they didn’t get out of it and some of the trips weren’t that bad, but the ones to museums always sucked monkey balls!

Gabriel was still grinning – grinning stupidly, in Dean’s opinion – when he pulled into the parking lot. His grin didn’t falter when he got out of the car and the boys followed suit. Actually, the archangel’s grin got ever bigger, until Sam and Dean finally saw the signs announcing exactly what kind of museum he had brought them to.

The spy museum that was close enough for them to reach in good time by car was nowhere near as big as the one in Washington, but it still had all the awesome stuff. Judging by the way the boys’ jaws had dropped, it would be a very good way for them to spend the afternoon.

“Agent Munchkin, Agent Bratty, let’s go check this out!” Gabriel stated in an upbeat tone, ushering the kids toward the entrance.

“That’s not funny!” Dean complained immediately after hearing his new nickname. The older Winchester had had some hopes that the adult would stick to only giving cutesy and stupid nicknames to Sammy, but no.

“Would you rather be Agent Sweety-Pie? That could be arranged,” the archangel offered, looking at Dean like he honestly expected the preteen to give him an answer.

“Whatever,” the older Winchester huffed predictably. Not more than a moment later the twelve year old was distracted by something he had read on a sign, so that he nearly forgot that he had just been annoyed, however.

“We can go on an actual mission every full hour!” Dean exclaimed excitedly. He checked his watch quickly and then added urgently, “It’s nearly three! Hurry up!”

Gabriel laughed out loud at that. It looked like the older Winchester was eager to get the museum experience started, already. If someone had told the preteen so just a couple minutes ago, he’d not have believed it. The archangel took pity on the impatient Weechester and quickened his pace a little. Keeping Dean happy was one of the key ingredients to make sure that they all had an enjoyable day, after all.

When Gabriel tried to purchase their tickets a problem he hadn’t anticipated came up, however. Not that it had to be much of a problem at all, since the archangel could be very persuasive, if he wanted to be. A friendly human cashier telling him that kids joining the mission had to be at least twelve years old, wouldn’t stand much of a chance to actually keep Sam out of the group, if Gabriel put his mind to it.

“It’s okay, I’d rather look at the exhibition with you,” the younger Winchester said decisively, before the archangel could work his charm and grace on the woman. The adult took a moment to try and determine if the kid was telling the God honest truth, but when Sam grabbed his hand and smiled one of his dimpled smiles, Gabriel shrugged and bought two regular tickets for them.

“Meet you back here in an hour, Dean-o,” the archangel told the twelve year old, handing Dean’s special mission ticket over to him. It was actually quite cute how enthusiastically the older Winchester ran off toward the meeting point. However, Gabriel wouldn’t have been able to hold back on just one more comment, if he had wanted to. “Do your country proud, Agent Bratty!”

Dean only stopped for a moment to throw a glare back at the adult. Apparently, Gabriel had taken enough care not to speak loud enough for the rest of the already assembled group to hear over their own chattering, which was a blessing to the twelve year old. The older Winchester still made a mental note to give his younger brother a noogie for snickering later.

“You sure you don’t want to go with him? I’m pretty sure I can still get you in there,” the archangel offered one last time. Gabriel was nearly convinced that Sam hadn’t only said that he would rather go look at the normal exhibition with the adult not to cause any troubles, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure. The Winchesters were famous for being self-sacrificing idiots, after all. The archangel could at least make sure that eight year old Sammy wouldn’t get away with that kind of behavior, even if it only was about an activity for children and not the lives of a bunch of people.

“No, ‘s okay. It’s much more Dean’s thing,” Sam shrugged, tugging on Gabriel’s hand to get him to move toward the show room. The eagerness the boy displayed with that simple gesture was everything the adult needed to be completely convinced that not getting to go with Dean really was a non-issue.

“And learning stuff, doing research and hanging out with old farts like me, is much more your thing?” the archangel asked with a grin, letting the kid drag him toward the first few exhibits he wanted to look at. Actually, the first two things Gabriel had listed probably applied to Sam in his adult form, too. If the last point did as well, that would have been quite the surprise.

“You’re not that old,” Sam replied, his ears immediately turning bright red, indicating that he hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud. Because of reasons the younger Winchester didn’t understand himself, he always got embarrassed when he thought or spoke about how much he liked Gabriel.

The archangel chuckled and ruffled the kid’s hair affectionately. He didn’t voice just how adorable he thought Sam was, because that wouldn’t have done a thing to help Sam’s ears to return to their normal color. In fact, there was something Gabriel had meant to show to the younger Winchester, anyway. It was the perfect moment to do so too, with Dean undoubtedly being away and busy for a while. It should help to distract the eight year old from his current train of thoughts, too.

“Hey, Munchkin, while your brother is gone, I’ve got something for you,” the archangel spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, taking a small bottle out of the inside pocket of his jacket. Sam might have forgotten about Gabriel’s promise to help him come up with a prank, but the trickster never forgot about something as important as a prank! He might have had a lot of other things on his mind recently, but his plans were postponed not abandoned.

“Cool!” the younger Winchester grinned from ear to ear as soon as he realized what the adult had just given to him. The bottle looked inconspicuous enough, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be hair dye. Not the kind that women bought at drug stores, but the kind that was sold at joke shops. “It’ll wash out again, right?”

Sam wanted to get his brother back for the clown mask incident, but he didn’t want to humiliate him, especially when they were going to go out for Halloween! The younger Winchester just had to make sure that his older brother wouldn’t suffer because of the prank before he could put hair dye into Dean’s shampoo bottle.

“Sure, Dean-o will only have to run around with pink hair for a few days, or he’ll have to take a very long shower with lots of hair washing,” Gabriel answered, winking at Sam. Having to spend an hour or two with pink hair would be bad enough for Dean, there was absolutely no need to make it last any longer. Sam wanted justice and not cruelty, after all.

The younger Winchester nodded, satisfied. He put the bottle into the pocket of his own jacket, vowing to use it that evening. That way Dean would have nearly two days to get rid of the color again before Halloween.

The regular part of the exhibition was interesting and well presented. It captured the attention of the eight year old so much, that the hour the older Winchester was gone seemed to fly by. It looked like the little mission the other children had been on had left quite the impression with Dean, because he had no complaints about going back and looking at the entire exhibition when Sam suggested so, because he hadn’t had the time to look at everything yet anyway.

“Looks like I didn’t even have to force you to have fun, Dean-o,” Gabriel stated with a smirk when they were on the way back to the car some time later.

“Whatever,” Dean snorted. He didn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t just as happy with his ‘Spy Science Secrete Message Kit’ as Sam was with his book on the history of espionage, though.

 

* * *

 

 

The younger Winchester had made sure he got the first shower that evening. Replacing some of the content of the shampoo bottle he knew Dean used with the hair dye hadn’t been a problem. After Sam had spent enough time in the bathroom to make it look like he had done his usual daily routine, he just went to the living room to wait.

Gabriel grinned when the younger Winchester looked over to him yet again, looking expectant, but also a little nervous. The archangel couldn’t help thinking that Sam wasn’t exactly a born trickster, he had too much of a conscience for that, but he had some potential. Not that the kid would ever get the chance to live up to his potential, not only in regards to his trickster potential, either.

“Sam!” Dean yelled from the bathroom, successfully pulling Gabriel out of his thoughts, too. Not that the older Winchester would know that or care when his hair had just been dyed bright pink, his skin taking on a pink tinge from the dye, too.

The archangel didn’t make it a habit to take pictures of half-naked preteens, but Gabriel just couldn’t let the opportunity to have lasting evidence of this pass. The older Winchester was too focused on glaring at his laughing little brother to notice the mobile phone, until an audible click announced that a picture had been taken.

It didn’t take longer than a second for Dean to turn around on his heels and storm back into the bathroom.

“Hey Sambo,” Gabriel suddenly said, snapping another picture when the eight year old turned to look at him. The archangel had only just realized that he hadn’t taken any photos of the children in the past days and while having keepsakes of their time together would turn hurtful very soon, not having any wouldn’t be much better.

“I wasn’t ready!” Sam complained half-heartedly.

“Okay, try to look cute,” Gabriel chuckled, getting ready to snap another picture. The younger Winchester frowned, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what the adult wanted from him for a moment. “Just act like you normally do, is what I meant.”

A moment later the archangel had a picture of a red-eared Sam to add to his picture of a bright pink Dean.


	15. Chapter 15

**15**

 

“You know, Castiel, I think I owe you an apology or two,” Gabriel commented casually, taking a chocolate covered donut out of the box he had standing in front of him on the kitchen counter.

It was too early for either one of the Winchester boys to be up, so the archangel had invited his own little brother to come over for a talk. The week, in which Dean’s undeniable love for the seraph was forcing the two angels to meet up very regularly, was drawing to a close and recent events had forced Gabriel to think about a lot of things he had avoided like the plague before. Speaking to Castiel about at least a few of those matters seemed only fair.

“I don’t understand,” the blue-eyed seraph admitted, tilting his head in confusion. Castiel was pretty sure that he was the one who still owed the apology. He had never expressed regret for tricking Gabriel into witnessing Tarot’s interrogation. Not that the angel planned to apologize. Castiel had done what he had done out of conviction that Gabriel needed to face a few uncomfortable truths. The seraph couldn’t, with a clear conscience, say that he was sorry for opening the archangel’s eyes. As Castiel understood it, an insincere apology was not worth a damn thing, in the first place.

“Of course, you don’t,” Gabriel replied dismissively, “When did we ever admit that we were wrong about anything? Lucifer was not the only archangel who was way too prideful for his own good.”

The archangel took a straw out of one of the cabinets and used it to suck the jelly filling out of the donut, under the thoroughly bewildered gaze of his brother. When the archangel was certain that he had removed most of the filling, he took a plastic syringe he had snapped into existence along with the donuts earlier and filled it with hot sauce. Of course, Gabriel could have made the donuts appear with the filling he wanted, but a big part of the fun in playing pranks was always in the preparation.

“I haven’t been a very good brother to you - or anybody else really – in the past few centuries,” the archangel sighed deeply, turning to look into the blue-eyed seraph’s eyes for a moment. “Hell, I probably never was, as much as I’d like to believe otherwise.”

Gabriel turned back toward the box of donuts after he had finished speaking. Admitting to his own shortcomings as an archangel and a brother in general was by no means easy for him. He decided working on a few more donuts with “special filling” was a good way to distract himself from feeling uncomfortable. Besides, having only one donut at the breakfast table when the boys emerged from their rooms would look suspicious. Gabriel needed at least three or four to make the scene look normal.

“You always were kinder than most,” Castiel stated awkwardly, after a few long moments of silence. The seraph didn’t know what to make of his brother’s sudden confession and he didn’t know what kind of reaction the archangel expected from him. In all honesty, Castiel had been fond of Gabriel before his older brother had disappeared from heaven. However, years and years of absence without a word had taken away from the fondness a little. However, as things were, Gabriel was the only archangel in existence who gave Castiel hope that not all of them wanted the Apocalypse to run its course.

“Thanks, Cassy,” the archangel chuckled, turning around to pat his brother’s shoulder amicably. “But looking at some of the douchebags you’re comparing me to, that doesn’t mean a lot.”

Of course, there were a lot of angels who were perfectly nice and peaceful beings. They had all been created as God’s soldiers, but some embraced the lifestyle more than others and some were willing to fight for the things they believed in, while others were just willing to fight blindly for whatever reason their commander told them to. It was too bad that most of heaven’s higher ups were colossal jerks these days.

“You have done much more than I expected for Sam and Dean and I am very grateful for it,” Castiel said seriously. Something about his brother’s last statement made the seraph feel like he was supposed to let the archangel know how much he appreciated that Gabriel had chosen to not only watch the two Winchesters, but put energy into giving the two boys a good week.

Castiel wasn’t quite sure what the donuts his brother had tampered with, or the bowl of cereal the archangel had taken out of the freezer a moment earlier were all about, but the blue-eyed angel assumed that they were part of something his older brother was preparing for the Winchesters.

“Bro, I didn’t say that because I expected you to suck up to me,” Gabriel clarified in an amused tone, “I am trying to tell you that I’m sorry for not helping you out more.”

The archangel deliberately avoided saying that he was going to change something about that in the future, however. Gabriel had started to think about some things differently and he was making plans, but he hadn’t made a final decision concerning his future involvement with all things Apocalypse related. There was no use allowing Castiel to get his hopes up, when the archangel might have to crush them again later.

“One more thing; I know I said you’d better not mention anything about the incident to me ever again,” Gabriel added after a short moment of silence, “But what happened to Tarot?”

As much as the archangel dreaded the answer to his question, he felt that he had to know. Gabriel had given Castiel completely free reign to do with Tarot however the blue-eyed seraph saw fit. So in a way, whatever happened to the sandy-haired angel, was the archangel’s fault as much as Castiel’s.

“I have found a safe place for him,” the dark-haired seraph replied, keeping his answer short until he could be sure that Gabriel wanted to know more. The look the archangel gave Castiel looked a lot like one that the seraph had seen his brother give the younger Winchester when he wanted to encourage the boy to speak on, so he felt he could give Gabriel some of the details. “I have appointed him to be Bobby Singer’s guardian. The arrangement should be beneficial for both of them.”

It took a few moments until the information the archangel had just been given sunk in completely. The solution Castiel had found didn’t sound bad to Gabriel. In fact, it sounded pretty damn good. The archangel was tempted to question how his blue-eyed brother had made sure that Tarot wouldn’t be able to either run away or get captured, but it sounded like the Winchesters had woken up and were on their way to the kitchen. Gabriel would have to trust that Castiel had made sure that any knowledge Tarot might acquire at Bobby Singer’s house couldn’t fall into wrong hands until he got the chance to ask.

“Morning, boys,” the archangel greeted the two Winchesters in an upbeat tone. Gabriel couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face when he saw that Dean had chosen to wear a woolen cap to cover his still pink hair with. The color had already washed out some, but the older Winchester hadn’t had enough time to get rid of it completely before he had gone to bed the previous night. Dean had considered covering his head even before he had overheard Castiel talking to Gabriel. Knowing that the dark-haired adult was going to be around for breakfast too had cemented the boy’s resolution not to show even one pink hair. He also vowed to go to the bathroom as soon as they were done eating and not come out again until he had his normal hair color back!

The fact that Castiel was staring at the blue cap, clearly baffled, made everything even funnier. The seraph never got to voice the question that was on the tip of his tongue, however.

“You don’t get to say a word about my cap, Cas!” Dean grumbled, shoving his little brother’s shoulder hard when the brat dared to giggle, “You’re wearing a trench coat inside!”

Castiel inclined his head and kept quiet. It stood to reason that wearing a woolen cap inside was no less conventional than wearing an overcoat inside, just as the older Winchester had just said. Besides, the more time the seraph spent among humans, the more he realized that fashion was something he simply didn’t understand.

Gabriel shook his head in amusement and put the plate with his special donuts on the tablet. Just as the archangel had expected, the younger Winchester didn’t look quite as happy about that kind of breakfast as his older brother did.

“I’ve got some cereal for you instead,” Gabriel told Sam with a nice smile, putting the bowl with the frozen milk and lucky charms combination in front of the eight year old. This probably was one of the most harmless pranks the archangel and trickster god had ever played on anyone, but he really didn’t want for the munchkin’s day to start with a scare or being really upset. In this case, it was all about the gesture of playing some sort of prank on him.

Sam’s reaction when he tried to eat his breakfast and instead found it frozen solid wasn’t exactly spectacular, but the boy’s deep frown and the confused noise that escaped his lips was everything Gabriel had wanted, anyway. As expected, Dean laughed at his younger brother, for the first time that morning forgetting about his pink hair. Just a moment later the older Winchester’s mood abruptly changed, when he grabbed one of the donuts and bit into it.

“Get Dean-o a glass of water, will you, Cassy?” Gabriel asked sweetly, trying not to grin too much as Dean sat open-mouthed, fanning his burning tongue with his hand. Not that water was going to do anything against hot sauce related pains, but getting Castiel to use the faucet was the one missing puzzle piece.

Again, putting duct tape on the faucet in a way that made sure that the next one to turn the water on would get sprayed wasn’t the sophisticated or elaborate kind of prank, but it definitely got the job done. Castiel was too baffled to react immediately and thus got much wetter than Gabriel had anticipated, making the prank even more successful.

Both boys just stared at the dark-haired adult for a moment before they broke into laughter, everything concerning frozen cereals and hot sauce donuts forgotten for the moment.

“Okay, guys,” Gabriel stated still chuckling, once the laughter had died down a little, “By my count, you have both played two pranks at each other, so you’re even. Let’s call what I just did the final battle and declare this war over.”

Dean huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. However, he was looking at his baby brother expectantly. If Sam was willing to call a truce, so was the older Winchester. The hair dye prank would have forced Dean to come back with something really big to top it and he wasn’t quite sure if he would have wanted to play a really mean prank on his brother, anyway. The only thing that didn’t sit quite right with Dean was that, as things were, Gabriel had won the war. Then again, the adult hadn’t even been a part of it and it was impossible to win a game you didn’t play. The older Winchester thought he could settle for knowing that nobody had won.

Sam didn’t have to think for a long time before he nodded seriously and offered his hand to his older brother to seal the deal. Ending their little prank war before it got really out of hand and before Halloween sounded like a really good idea.

“Alright and now for the real breakfast,” Gabriel announced, clapping his hands for emphasis. There were more than enough ordinary donuts left and the archangel hadn’t forgotten that he had promised ham and eggs to Sam the previous day.

“Dude, you should take the coat off, it’s all wet!” Dean told Castiel when the seraph moved to reclaim his seat next to the older Winchester. In a way, seeing the adult without his trench coat would be seriously weird. The twelve year old had never seen Castiel without it before, which actually was strange to begin with.

“Are you going to take your hat off, if he loses the coat?” Sam snickered, nearly squeaking when his older brother pinched his upper arm viciously in retaliation. The younger Winchester had to admit that he sort of deserved it. Sam glared at his brother while rubbing his upper arm, anyway.

“It might be the wise thing to do, Dean,” Castiel pointed out casually, shrugging off his trench coat and hanging it over the back of his chair, “You are perspiring.”

“So? Maybe I like to sweat. Have you ever thought of that? Can’t a guy sweat in peace?” the older Winchester ranted, looking at the dark-haired adult challengingly. Dean was fully prepared to argue his point some more, even if he knew that it was ridiculous. Somehow, the older Winchester really hated the thought that Cas might see his pink hair and laugh at him, so preventing that from happening was worth having an absurd discussion.

“I understand,” Castiel replied completely seriously to everyone’s surprise, “Wearing the hat is an expression of your free will.”

Gabriel had been in the process of cutting a grapefruit in half, when he had to stop and put the knife aside while biting his lip so he could laugh out loud without being in danger of accidentally cutting himself. It only took a few moments for Sam to laugh along.

“Never mind them, Cas,” Dean huffed, putting a hand on the adult’s shoulder and smiling at him, “You really get me.”


	16. Chapter 16

**16**

 

“It’ll wash out before tomorrow, right?” Sam asked worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip.

Dean had disappeared into the bathroom the second Castiel had excused himself, to continue his fight against the pink hair dye. Sure, the younger Winchester had wanted to play a prank on his brother, but the thought that it might stick longer than anticipated bothered him. In the end, it would be Sam’s fault, if Dean couldn’t enjoy Halloween, because his hair was still pink-ish. Gabriel might have given the hair dye to the younger Winchester in the first place, but it had been Sam’s decision to use it. Sam would have to take the blame, if anything went wrong.

“I swear to all that’s holy to me, Dean-o won’t have any problems being a badass monster hunter for Halloween, munchkin,” Gabriel vowed seriously. Even if the dye the archangel had chosen wouldn’t keep its promise to wash out again, he’d make sure that every last little trace of pink was gone from Dean’s hair before the children went to bed that evening. However, chances were that the older Winchester had already gotten rid of most of the color already. If the twelve year old spent as much time in the shower today and kept washing his hair as vigorously as he had the previous evening, he’d have his natural hair color back before lunchtime.

“And while we wait for your big brother to run out of hot water, we can start with the pie!” Gabriel announced with a grin, getting two medium sized pumpkins out of the pantry. It had been Sam’s wish to go trick or treating, because the eight year old thought that it was a normal thing to do at Halloween that also sounded fun. The archangel had figured that the younger Winchester would appreciate some of the other traditions, as well.

“Pumpkin pie?” Sam asked, smiling at the adult as Gabriel put one of the pumpkins and a knife in front of him on the table. To tell the truth, the younger Winchester wouldn’t have complained about any activity the adult could have suggested. Gabriel had proven more than often enough that he knew very well how to make a day fun, for all of them. Besides, whatever they were doing, it usually gave Sam the opportunity to talk to the adult or to just be close to him and that was the most important thing to the younger Winchester, anyway.

“We’ll have to do something with all the pumpkin stuff that’s left over from the Jack O’ Lanterns,” Gabriel shrugged lightly, winking at the kid. The archangel hadn’t expected the boy to get all excited over the prospect of baking – that probably was much more Dean-o’s shtick – but carving Jack O’ Lanterns was a fun activity for sure.

Sam had seen enough pumpkin lanterns in his life to know what they were supposed to look like, so he didn’t hesitate to grab the knife and start to cut out a circle around the stem of the pumpkin. Gabriel smiled to himself, looking at the concentrated look on the younger Winchester’s face. The tip of the kid’s tongue was even peeking out of the corner of his mouth, as Sam carefully, but with a sure hand, cut a hole into the top of the pumpkin. The whole picture was just too cute. The thought that it might be better to ask the eight year old if he needed help with the knife had crossed the archangel’s mind, but the boy obviously had the situation under control.

Gabriel shook his head with a fond smile and pulled the bowl now holding the pumpkin’s innards to himself to start plucking the seeds from the flesh. The archangel was pretty sure that the younger Winchester would enjoy some roasted pumpkin seeds and he had to separate them from the rest anyway, before he could puree the innards for the filling of the pie.

“Woah, munchkin, I thought you’d go for a classic face,” Gabriel stated astonished, when he looked up from the bowl a few minutes later. The younger Winchester was nowhere near done with the figure he was carving into the pumpkin, but the angel figure was already easily recognizable. It was nowhere near a classic Halloween symbol, but the archangel wasn’t going to give a negative word about that. Of course, the eight year old took the comment Gabriel had made as criticism, it was almost like his first reaction to any comment was that he was wrong.

“Did… did you want that? I can… there’s still the second…” Sam mumbled, looking at his half-finished angel like he suddenly didn’t like the idea he had come up with anymore. The younger Winchester had thought that he could carve an angel into the one pumpkin and a devil into the other one. Maybe he should have started with the devil, that would have looked more appropriate for Halloween. Then Gabriel would have been able to see the logic behind what Sam had been planning, once he would have started with the second one. Then again, maybe the adult had just wanted a classical pumpkin face. The younger Winchester should have asked, dammit!

“No, no, kiddo, it’s fine. That looks amazing!” Gabriel clarified, moving his chair closer to Sam’s to get a better look and took the chance to bump his shoulder against the kid’s amicably. Honestly, the archangel had been sure that the younger Winchester would go for a simple and classic design, because he seemed to like normal things and because – if anything – he seemed to lack a bit of imagination at times.

“Remind me never to upset you. You’re damn good with that knife,” Gabriel added jokingly, after inspecting the clear and surprisingly fine lines the eight year old had carved into the pumpkin. The archangel couldn’t help but wonder, if the knife handling skills were something that came from adult Sam or if eight year old Sammy actually already had those skills. Both options seemed plausible.

“I’d never… I wouldn’t want to…” the younger Winchester stuttered, putting the knife aside quickly, but carefully.

Gabriel frowned and put his palm against Sam’s back, rubbing it soothingly. The archangel was trying to prepare himself for another conversation that would probably touch him much too deeply, but he had learned in the past days that whatever he was prepared to hear never was what the kid had to say. Unfortunately, what Sam had to say usually was more heartbreaking than Gabriel would anticipate.

“I know that, Sam,” the archangel finally stated in a gentle tone, still rubbing the boy’s back. When it was about eight year old Sammy, there was no doubt that the kid would never purposely hurt anybody with a knife or otherwise, while the same thing wasn’t true for the adult version, Gabriel hadn’t lied.

“But…” Sam sighed deeply, not quite meeting the adult’s eyes.

“But?” Gabriel asked in an encouraging tone. The archangel might not have been too keen on having the conversation that was going to follow, but they were going to have it. There was something that the kid had to get off his chest. A lot of people – or rather beings – would undoubtedly have had a good laugh, if they ever learned that Loki was willing to repeatedly leave his comfort zone for a little human’s sake. It wasn’t that often that anything or anybody was important enough for the trickster god to put them over his own preferences.

“D-dad gave me a knife… a while back and… made me practice stuff with it… and Dean… Dean knows how to use… a gun,” Sam whispered, leaning into the adult’s touch a little more. The younger Winchester didn’t want to say anything bad about his father, not even to another adult that he really trusted, but that moment the younger Winchester felt like he would explode, if he didn’t speak his mind. “I… I think d-dad wants us to… join the military when we’re older, like he did… or something like that.”

“And you don’t want that,” Gabriel stated matter-of-factly. There really was no question about the younger Winchester’s preferences in the matter. The way the boy had stammered, fighting for every word and looking like a kicked puppy toward the end of his speech, made it perfectly clear that Sam was unhappy with what he thought was the future their father was planning for them.

“No, I want to… I want to…” Sam had to stop speaking to take a deep breath, before he could put his thoughts into words he could say out loud, as well. “If I could, I’d want to stay here, but that’s impossible.”

Gabriel had to bite his tongue to keep himself from saying that he’d keep the younger Winchester – and his brother – with him in a heartbeat. However, saying anything alike would do more bad than good, for himself especially. Sam might be wrong about the reasons why it was impossible for the two boys to stay with the archangel, but the point that they couldn’t – and very soon wouldn’t want to – stay still stood. It already hurt just to think about.

“We… we’re family… and I don’t want to leave dad, you know?” the younger Winchester hurried to add, searching the adult’s face to make sure that Gabriel understood that he wasn’t trying to be an ungrateful brat. The thought that Sam might have to leave Dean as well as their father, if he could go to live somewhere else, didn’t even cross the boy’s mind. Not having his older brother by his side was something the younger Winchester couldn’t even imagine. Not having John around was something he was used to. “I just wish… I wish he didn’t want all this stuff that I don’t want.”

“You can’t change other people, kiddo, that’s not in your power,” Gabriel shrugged, looking at the kid nearly apologetically. “You can only change yourself.”

Technically, changing other people was in the archangel’s power. But there really was no way to change the things that John Winchester had done wrong while raising his boys, since both boys were – again, technically – grown up already. Not to mention that history had proven John right with most of his methods. There was a reason that the two Winchesters were still alive and rebelling against both heaven and hell. It wasn’t because they had been spoiled rotten as children and had never to deal with any really bad situations before.

“Like… like, running away?” Sam whispered, looking around nervously, as if he feared that someone could overhear them talking and think that they were conspiring.

“That’s one way,” Gabriel admitted, inclining his head, “But believe me, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m not sure I’d do it again.”

The younger Winchester stared at the adult open-mouthed. Sure, there was something a little off about the way Gabriel and Castiel acted around each other, but Sam would have never thought that was because of family issues. The eight year old immediately felt awful for the adult.

“I haven’t spoken to any of them in ages. Other than Castiel, I mean. And we only reconnected recently,” Gabriel confesses, trying to keep his tone light and a small, forced smile firmly plastered on his face.

“’M sorry,” Sam replied sincerely, looking up at the adult from under his bangs before he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s neck for a moment and squeezed lightly. The younger Winchester didn’t think that he had hugged or had been hugged by somebody as often as he had in the past few days ever since Dean had decided that he was too old for cuddling. His older brother still hugged him every time it was necessary, but he had stopped doing it for not particular reason more than a year ago.

“It’s okay, munchkin,” Gabriel smiled, unable to resist ruffling Sam’s hair after that sweet, comforting hug he had just received. The archangel decided that it was about time to change the topic and get back to nicer things now. “That angel still needs a second wing, Sambo.”

Sam nodded silently and picked the knife back up to work on the other half of his creation. The younger Winchester couldn’t help watching Gabriel from the corner of his eyes, though. The thought that the adult would be basically all on his own again, as soon as their father came to pick them up, hit Sam unexpectedly. It was stupid, really. Gabriel probably had a lot of friends he usually met all the time that he just didn’t see, because he was babysitting. The adult had two guest rooms in his apartment, so surely there were people who were staying over a lot. The younger Winchester still couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that the adult would be lonely without them.

“That’s so girly, Sammy,” Dean commented with a snort, looking at the angel his younger brother had carved into the pumpkin. The older Winchester was finally convinced that his hair was back to its natural color and thus had left the shower – that miraculously still had hot water – behind and decided to see what his little brother was up to.

Finding Sam in the process of carving a Jack O’ Lantern was a surprise for sure, but it looked like his baby brother was having fun and Dean could hardly object to Sam handling sharp knives. The older Winchester was more interested in the things Gabriel was doing with the pumpkin pieces he was pureeing, anyway. Hopefully, pumpkin puree would mean pumpkin pie and not pumpkin soup! Everything was great as a pie, but that didn’t apply for soup.

“Last time I saw you, you had pink hair,” Sam shot back, grinning when Dean’s eyes widened slightly because of the – completely accurate – accusation. It had probably only just dawned on the older Winchester, that his brother would always have a story to tell about Dean’s pink hair whenever he brought up how girly Sam was.

“Whatever, bitch,” the older Winchester huffed. Dean would have to find a way to make sure that Sam never brought up the pink hair again, but it wouldn’t be easy.

“Jerk,” Sam replied, still grinning.


	17. Chapter 17

**17**

 

It was a good thing that the archangel had thought of giving the younger Winchester two pumpkins to carve lanterns from, because there had been enough pumpkin puree for two big pies. Dean – with just minimal help by Sam and Gabriel – had managed to eat an entire pie the previous day, so there wouldn’t have been any left for their Halloween breakfast, if they hadn’t had the second one on stand-by. The younger Winchester hadn’t been completely on board with the idea of a breakfast that consisted only of dessert, so the archangel had found an alternative for him. Gabriel had toyed with the idea of putting some red food coloring into the milk for Sam’s cereal, but the thought of seeing the younger Winchester consume something looking like blood had turned from funny, to creepy and outright uncomfortable in a millisecond.

They spent the greater part of the day with watching Halloween specials of various shows on TV and playing a couple of board games. As it turned out, the older Winchester was a bit of a sore loser, but he always forgot everything about the previous lost game as soon as things were looking up for him in the next round. Besides, Dean’s very colorful and creative use of a wide range of swearwords amused Gabriel to no end.

“Hey, munchkin, look!” the archangel stated later that evening, pulling two plastic tubes from his pocket, “Glow sticks! For the pumpkins.”

Granted, Gabriel wouldn’t have had to worry about the fire hazard of putting real candles in the Jack O’ Lanterns, but the archangel had a feeling that Sam would have called him out on putting the apartment into danger with open flames. Besides, real candles didn’t come with blue and red light, which was just perfect for the angel/devil combination lanterns, anyway.

“Awesome!” Sam exclaimed, bouncing with excitement as he took the red glow stick from the adult. The eight year old had been looking forward to the Halloween experience ever since the idea had first crossed his mind and every little addition made him just a little bit happier.

Gabriel couldn’t decide if the irony of the younger Winchester instinctively taking the red glow stick, to light up the devil lantern with was hilarious, or somewhat tragic. In the end, the archangel decided to be amused. Life was so much easier if you chose to go with the fun option, whenever there was one.

Once they had lit up the lanterns, Gabriel went to the kitchen to get a big bowl filled with sweets to put in front of the door, just in case any trick or treaters were going to come by while nobody was at home. The archangel winked at the younger Winchester and got out a piece of paper with bright red text on it.

“One piece per customer, an angel and a devil are watching you!” Sam read out loud, his mouth twitching in amusement. So, they were going to put the bowl and the two pumpkins in front of the door later. For some reason, the younger Winchester really liked the idea of having decorations he had made in front of the door. Maybe, he pondered, it was like carving his and Dean’s initials into the cover over the hidden compartment in the trunk of the Impala, a sign stating that he belonged into this place.

“That’s never gonna work,” Dean commented with a snort, nodding toward the sign. As if to prove his point, the older Winchester grabbed two pieces of candy, unwrapped them and put them both into his mouth. His satisfied grin was stretched a little wide with the candy in his mouth, but he had successfully proved that the sign didn’t keep anyone from doing anything.

“We’ll see, Dean-o, we’ll see,” Gabriel replied casually, “I bet you the last piece of pie that there’ll still be candy in the bowl when we get back home.”

“Deal, but you’re not allowed to make us go home early just to win!” Dean agreed, offering his hand to the adult to seal the deal. The older Winchester had seen the things Gabriel had put into the bowl and there was nothing in there so disgusting that nobody would take it. Dean had made the one other condition that had come to mind to make it more likely that he would win. Chances were some kid would come along and take the entire bowl.

“’Course not!” Gabriel promised, shaking the older Winchester’s hand. It was too bad for Dean that he hadn’t thought of saying ‘No cheating whatsoever’, because there was nothing in their bet that kept the archangel from using a little mojo to make sure that the bowl would always refill itself about halfway as soon as something had been taken out and nobody was around to see. To be fair, Gabriel had intended to do exactly that before he had ever thought of making a bet with Dean. Besides, he also had the intention of making sure that the older Winchester still got pie, just not the last slice of pie.

“It’s about time we get ready,” the archangel announced a few minutes later. The sooner they put on their costumes and went out to, the more good sweets would still be there for them to pick up. Not that Gabriel expected that he was going to get many sweets. For some silly reason adults didn’t seem to want to give other adults candy. This wasn’t about him, anyway. It was about giving Sam and Dean a childhood experience they had obviously missed. It was about giving the munchkin something he has asked for. Sadly, it also was about giving the week they had spent together a good ending.

It was a few minutes later, when all of them had changed into their costumes and they met in the living room again. As expected, Sam looked absolutely adorable in his long green tunic, the matching cap, brown leggings and boots. The Link costume had been a good pick, Gabriel had to give Dean that. Not that the older Winchester hadn’t done a great job picking something fitting for himself. The twelve year old looked nearly menacing in his black long coat, black shirt, trousers and boots. The black hat Dean had found, plus the various plastic weapons strapped to his back, arms and legs, completed the outfit.

“Dude, what’s with the horns?” the older Winchester asked as soon as he laid eyes on Gabriel’s costume, “Are you compensating for something?”

The archangel raised an eyebrow at the preteen. Gabriel was tempted to ask Dean what exactly a kid whose balls had yet to drop, knew about compensating for things, but the older Winchester knew too much about sexual innuendo as it was. There was no need for the archangel to give the kid even more information on the topic.

“They are a part of the costume,” Gabriel stated instead, even if what he had just said was obvious, anyway. It wasn’t like he usually ran around with helmets with big horns, even in his escapades as a god. Actually, he didn’t wear that much green usually, either.

“Yeah, you’re the incredible… horny dude,” Dean smirked, crossing his arms in front of his chest with some difficulty, because of the plastic knives he had strapped to his forearms. So, it wasn’t practical, but it looked damn awesome!

“Dean, did you just…?” Sam quipped, looking at his older brother with big eyes, even as the corners of his mouth twitched, despite being merely eight. The younger Winchester was pretty sure that Dean hadn’t meant to say what he had just said. It was too funny, anyway.

“Shut up, Sammy!” Dean hissed, punching his brother’s upper arm to get him to stop laughing. Thinking his previous statement through, the older Winchester realized his mistake, but it was too late to take it back, anyway. All he could do was put up the attitude to stand completely behind what he had said, even if he knew that it had been badly worded.

“I am Loki, god of mischief and chaos, ignorant human,” Gabriel clarified, giving his voice the note of arrogance and superiority he usually added to make people know that they had just screwed with the wrong person. In this case, the archangel only did it for the sake of showing off, of course. Both boys only looked at him uncomprehendingly, however. Gabriel clicked his tongue and shook his head sadly. “Kiddos, you need to read more comic books.”

“Loki is from…?” Sam asked, as they took the Jack O’ Lanterns and the bowl of sweets to put them in front of the door. The younger Winchester had already seen a few younger kids running down the street earlier, so it was about time that they headed out too. The eight year old still wanted to know the reasoning behind the adult’s costume, though.

“Marvel comics, he’s Thor’s archenemy,” Gabriel explained. The archangel couldn’t help chuckling from a joke neither one of the boys would understand. The relationship between the real life Loki and Thor was actually much simpler than the one in those comic books. They didn’t exactly like each other, so they avoided each other. Of course, in real life, Loki wasn’t trying to take over or destroy the world.

Gabriel handed the bags he had gotten for the boys over to them as soon as they had arranged the two lit up pumpkin lanterns and the sweets in front of the door. There was no doubt that Dean could eat the sweets just as quickly as he received them, but Sam probably really needed the bag.

“Thor,” Sam repeated after the adult in a thoughtful tone, “I’ve heard that name before.”

It bugged the younger Winchester a little that he couldn’t remember why the name sounded familiar to him, but he was sure that Gabriel would tell him what he wanted to know. The adult never seemed to mind Sam’s questions and they had a little time while they walked up to the houses Gabriel was directing them toward, anyway.

“Norse mythology, munchkin,” the archangel answered, “The god of thunder.”

“Why didn’t you dress up as that guy? Sounds much cooler,” Dean stated with conviction. Not only was Thor a comic book hero that the older Winchester had heard of before, he also had a big ass hammer and not some stupid horns on his helmet! Judging by the covers Dean had seen, anyway. He couldn’t say that he had ever read a single issue. Whenever their dad actually was in the mood to allow him to buy a comic book, the older Winchester went for Batman.

“Hmm, the jerk who shoots thunderbolts at everyone standing in his way, or the trickster who’s dishing out just-deserts to people who deserve it? Yeah, why did I choose the latter again?” Gabriel replied sarcastically. So, the archangel really didn’t have the highest opinion of Thor, sue him. Not like Thor wouldn’t and hadn’t gone around badmouthing Loki.

“Loki sounds great,” Sam mumbled, his ears already turning red again. The younger Winchester looked up to the adult and smiled widely when Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder, just a second later. As much as Sam didn’t like feeling this embarrassed around the adult, he couldn’t deny that he liked how Gabriel always reassured him with a smile or a touch.

Dean huffed out a breath, but didn’t comment on his younger brother’s behavior. Their dad was going to pick them up in just a day – or, knowing John Winchester, a little more than a day – and then the older Winchester wouldn’t have to think about what the closeness between his baby brother and the adult meant anymore. Granted, Dean hadn’t seen or heard anything that gave him a reason to worry that Gabriel had ulterior motives for his friendliness, especially to Sam, but the older Winchester still had to stay vigilant at all times. Their father wouldn’t expect any less of him.

Just a minute later, Dean had something else to think about, as they reached the first house that had Halloween decorations. A group of children had just walked away from the place, looking happy and content, so chances were that somebody was home and willing to hand out sweets.

In all honesty, the older Winchester would have preferred the ‘trick’ part of trick or treating, but he supposed that Sam had different ideas on the matter. It would be nice to start the evening with a sugary treat, anyway.

“Trick or treat!” both boys said together when a woman in her fifties opened the door for them. Though, it had to be noted that Sam was much more enthusiastic about it than his older brother. The younger Winchester also was the one who took the cheek pinching with more dignity. However, Dean’s nearly scandalized reaction was much funnier for Gabriel to watch.

“Should totally egg her house for that one,” Dean muttered, rubbing his cheek where it had been pinched, while his brother looked at the chocolate bar he had gotten happily.

“Dean! That’s not okay!” Sam objected immediately. Of course, it was called trick or treating, but they had gotten their treat, so a prank of whatever kind was completely uncalled for. Not to mention, the younger Winchester wasn’t sure if throwing eggs at somebody’s house was funny under any circumstances.

“Your brother is right, it’s not,” Gabriel agreed, smirking. The glint in his eyes clearly said that the archangel had something up his sleeve, however. As it turned out, what the adult had up his sleeve was a bag of bang snaps that he handed over to the older Winchester just a moment later. “But they’re only for the doormats of the people who don’t hand anything over or for those who are total jerks about it.”

Sam opened his mouth, but snapped it shut again without saying anything. What the adult had just said sounded reasonable enough, the younger Winchester supposed. He could still argue his point later when they got to the first house where they didn’t get anything.


	18. Chapter 18

**18**

 

Despite Sam’s protests, Gabriel fully approved when Dean put a couple of bang snaps under the doormat of the guy who had opened the door for the kids just to tell them that he wasn’t going to give them anything for a fucking godless holiday. If the jerk hadn’t opened the door at all, the archangel might have backed the younger Winchester’s argument that not everybody was into Halloween and that not celebrating the holiday was no reason to play pranks on people. Opening the door just to yell at a couple of kids, trying to have fun, was grade A douchebaggery. Not to mention that Gabriel was a pagan god who was all for Halloween, so first the guy had been wrong in saying that it was a godless holiday and second he’d better be glad that he’d only get a scare the next time he stepped on his doormat for his attitude.

Other than that one incident, their trick or treating tour was coming along nicely and both Winchesters had collected enough sweets to spoil their appetite for the next couple of meals. Sam lost track of how often he had been told that he was just too cute in his costume, but he didn’t mind too much, because the people always smiled at him and gave him good sweets. Of course, he still tried to kick or push Dean whenever his older brother laughed at him because of it. The way Gabriel always had that little, happy smile on his face when they walked away from another house where someone had complimented Sam’s costume and had generally been nice to him made everything just that much better.

Dean got attention mostly from the other kids running around, especially from the girls around his age who thought he looked too cool and from some of the boys who liked all the weapons he had. The older Winchester would have died from embarrassment, if mothers and old women had called him cute as frequently as they did with Sammy, anyway. He didn’t want even a single one of them to call him cute, period. That first old lady who had pinched both their cheeks had been bad enough, in Dean’s opinion.

“We’ll go down that road,” Gabriel announced when they reached an interception that had equally promising looking houses at both sides. The archangel had his reasons why he wanted them to turn right, of course. He still had a little surprise for the boys up his sleeve.

“Why? What’s down there?” Dean asked, narrowing his eyes at the adult suspiciously. The older Winchester of course, would have turned left, so Gabriel had to have a damn good reason why he wanted them to go the other way.

“The local High School,” the archangel replied, smirking when Dean immediately shuddered. Gabriel wondered if it was a sort of Pavlovian reaction that had made the older Winchester respond like he had. Sam’s ears had perked up noticeably at the mention of a school, adding further proof to the archangel’s theory about Winchesters and Pavlovian conditioning.

“That’s a good enough reason to go the other way,” Dean groaned, refusing to take one more step to the right until he heard a good reason to move again. While Sam might enjoy it, something like ‘The school library is having a sale tonight’ wasn’t going to cut it! There better be something good like…

“They have a haunted house going,” Gabriel explained, grinning when Dean’s expression went from vaguely annoyed to excited, in under a second.

“What are we waiting for?” the older Winchester asked, suddenly a few steps ahead of his younger brother and their guardian already. A haunted house sounded like the perfect surroundings for a monster hunter and there probably were a few girls – and boys – around Dean’s age there, he could impress with his braveness.

“Don’t worry, munchkin, if there’s anything clown-themed, you just close your eyes and I’ll carry you through,” Gabriel promised in a conspiratorial whisper once Dean was far enough ahead of them to not hear it. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume that something in the haunted house might play straight into Sam’s phobia. Clowns gave a lot of people the creeps, after all.

“You could just… maybe, if you held my hand, that’d be okay too,” the younger Winchester replied in a hushed tone, looking toward his older brother nervously. It wasn’t only about Dean teasing him mercilessly, if he overheard what Sam had just said. It was much more that the conversation the younger Winchester was having with Gabriel felt private, the moment belonged to Sam and Sam alone. There were very few things that were solely his, but he was determined to keep this for himself.

“You got it, Sambo,” the archangel smiled, winking at the kid and offering his hand.

“And I’ll hold your hand if there are any stallions,” Sam promised with a grin, taking the adult’s hand. Somehow, the thought of encountering a bunch of clowns wasn’t that scary to the younger Winchester when Gabriel was standing right next to him. Dean always tried to help his brother when Sam got too scared too, but the older Winchester didn’t really take his brother’s fear of clowns all that seriously.

They walked in silence for a minute before Gabriel’s cell phone announced that he had gotten a text message. This time the archangel wasn’t surprised to see that it came from his trench coat clad brother.

“Hey, Dean-o,” Gabriel stated as soon as he had read the message, “Cassy will join us in a bit.”

“Awesome!” Dean exclaimed happily, while the adult typed a message back. The older Winchester liked the thought of showing off his costume to Cas, a lot. It was too bad that the adult hadn’t let them know that he would be around for Halloween earlier. Dean could have dressed the blue-eyed man up as his sidekick or something. That would have been awesome!

What Gabriel wasn’t telling the kids, was that his little brother apparently was worried, because Zachariah’s goons had renewed their efforts to find the Winchesters. Of course, the spell was going to end sometime the next day, so it made sense that everyone and their grandmother would be out searching for the two children. Not that Sam and Dean had anything to worry about while they were walking around with an archangel/pagan god, but if it would make Castiel feel better to join them to see for himself that everything was alright, Gabriel wasn’t going to object.

“I say, let’s go in,” the archangel suggested when they arrived at the High School and Castiel was nowhere to be seen, “Cassy will find us when he arrives.”

Actually, Castiel – just like any other angel in existence – wouldn’t be able to find the Winchesters by sensing them. The marks on their ribs hadn’t disappeared when they had been turned into children, which likely was the only reason why Castiel had managed to get to them before one of Zachariah’s goons.

However, the blue-eyed seraph would know to look for Loki and Gabriel didn’t intend to make finding him too hard for his little brother. Despite the archangel’s complicated relationship with parts of his adopted pagan family and various other beings, he was on at least friendly terms with most of them. Friendly enough terms that they wouldn’t attack him the moment they saw him, as long as he didn’t meddle with their affairs that was. So walking around with two human children on Halloween, letting everyone who was able to see the aura of power Gabriel didn’t bother to conceal see him for the Norse god for mischief and chaos, wasn’t putting the kids or himself in danger.

“Don’t worry, Sammy, I’ll go ahead and make sure it’s safe for you,” Dean announced in a teasing tone with a wide grin, drawing one of the plastic blades he had strapped to his back for effect.

The haunted house the High School had put together, was impressive. Enough so that Gabriel vowed to make a donation in addition to the price he had paid for their tickets. The decorations were creatively creepy and the students, who had dressed up as various monsters to scare the visitors, were doing an excellent job. It was even better that some of the teenagers were playing along when Dean was threatening them with one of his plastic weapons.

“You show ‘em who’s boss, Dean-o!” Gabriel cheered the preteen on, while keeping the younger Winchester close to his side. It was obvious that the eight year old was fascinated by the entire experience, but that it also made him a little anxious. Sam’s unease was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a slight squeeze of Gabriel’s hand whenever the younger Winchester got too tense, however.

They had just entered the next segment of the haunted house, which was decorated to look like a pharaoh’s tomb, and Dean was chasing a mummy with his sword drawn, when Gabriel felt a flicker of angelic energy behind him. The archangel hadn’t even fully turned around to greet Castiel when an angel blade was embedded into his chest.

Gabriel’s eyes widened in surprise and shock, as he let go of Sam’s hand and fell to the floor. The younger Winchester screamed, terrified and tried to grab any part of Gabriel to shake the adult and get him to move, but his older brother reacted quickly and dragged his younger sibling away from the unmoving body, then shoved Sam behind himself to shield him from their bald attacker.

“I have to give it to Castiel, he knows how to hide things where nobody would think to look for them,” Zachariah commented, fixing the two children with a hard stare. They weren’t going to disappear on him now that he finally had them!

Dean didn’t know how the hell the bald man knew Castiel or what baldy was even talking about, but he still puffed up his chest and made sure that his little brother was staying behind him. The teenager dressed up as the mummy the older Winchester had been chasing earlier surely would run to alert others of what was happening. Somebody was bound to come and help them soon. They just had to be smart and survive until that happened!

A big part of Gabriel was screaming at him to get up and help the children, but a blow like the one he had received would have killed the average pagan god. Giving away that Zachariah’s angel blade had only hurt him momentarily, would give away that he was not the pagan god he was posing as. The archangel would have to give up his cover and take a stand. In the end, it wasn’t Gabriel’s head that made the decision for him.

“You two mud monkeys are way more trouble than you’re worth,” Zachariah stated with a huff, “But we’ll finally put an end to all that.”

The moment the angel moved one step closer to the children, was the moment Dean pushed his hysterical brother hard to get him to move, so they could try to run away. There were a lot of people around the building, they just had to get to a part where they could disappear in the crowd. The older Winchester wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do after that, but he could still make that decision later.

However, they ran no further than a few steps before the bald man was suddenly standing in front of them.

“You are going to be a good boy for us now,” Zachariah stated, looking directly at Dean, “Or we’ll have to see how long you can stand to hear your little brother squeal like a pig and scream for mercy.”

There was no doubt that one night would be enough to break the spirit of a twelve year old, especially since the children knew nothing about angel banishing sigils or why their older selves had gotten it into their heads to resist against all reason. Having an entire week to work with the older Winchester would have been preferable, they might have even been able to play a little nicer that way, but as things were, they would just have to use Zachariah’s preferred method of convincing unwilling subjects to cooperate immediately.

“You’re not going to touch either one of them,” Gabriel announced, throwing aside the angel blade he had removed from his chest. The archangel rolled his shoulders for a moment before he unleashed his wings, their massive shadows falling on the wall behind him. Gabriel’s usually golden-brown eyes glowing with heavenly power unseen in centuries.

Zachariah suddenly didn’t look quite as smug and sure of himself anymore. In fact, he looked like he was about to start groveling. Not that the archangel was in the mood to hear any of it. Gabriel hadn’t forgotten the feeling of wanting to punish Zachariah for what he had done to Tarot and the fact that his stupid brother had dared to threaten the archangel’s boys only made that feeling stronger.

The bald angel opened his mouth to speak, but Gabriel interrupted him harshly before the first sound came over his lips.

“Shut it, Zach, you’ve said enough,” the archangel commanded, moving in front of Zachariah within the blink of an eye, closing his hands around the other angel’s throat, “I’d be tempted to remove your vocal cords or something alike, but that’d be a little… redundant.”

A good old classic smiting done by an archangel wasn’t something that would stay undetected by heaven and especially the other archangels, but Gabriel wasn’t going to half-ass this. The archangel didn’t get so mad that he wanted to burn someone’s grace out often, but when he did, the anger needed to be let out.

Zachariah’s lifeless body fell to the ground as Gabriel stood above him, breathing heavily. Killing one of his siblings – no matter what kind of a bastard he had been – didn’t give the archangel any joy, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

“I knew it!” Sam suddenly exclaimed in an awed tone, looking at the shadows of Gabriel’s wings still on full display and then directly in the adult’s face. There were tear tracks on the younger Winchester’s cheeks, but he was smiling at the archangel. Sam had known from the start that Gabriel was an angel watching over them! That was the part of all the things that had just happened, the younger Winchester could safely focus on.

Dean, of course, wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the new discovery that their babysitter wasn’t an ordinary human being. The older Winchester was still shielding his little brother as best as he could, even though Sam was making it hard, trying to get a better look at the adult and his wings. At least, Dean had been able to keep Sam from running up to the freak!

“We better get out of here,” Gabriel sighed, giving the boys a small smile before he snapped his fingers and transported them back to their apartment. The archangel could – and would have to – deal with Dean’s freak-out later.


	19. Chapter 19

**19**

 

“Stay the fuck away from us!” Dean yelled at Gabriel, his voice taking on a hysterical note, as he extended one arm to make sure that the adult – or whatever thing he was – kept his distance. The older Winchester’s mind hadn’t fully processed that they were somehow back at Gabriel’s apartment, but wherever they were didn’t matter as much as making sure that Sam stayed safely shielded from that thing behind his brother’s back.

“Dean,” Sam tried to get his older brother’s attention. The younger Winchester knew that Dean was freaking out, but he also knew that there was no reason to be scared.

“Shut up, Sammy, shut up!” Dean insisted, pushing his brother behind himself again as soon as the eight year old tried to stand next to him. The only thing keeping the older Winchester from doing something very rash – though he had no idea what exactly that would have been – was that Gabriel hadn’t moved since they had reappeared at the apartment. Dean really needed the time to think things through and decide what he should do next.

“Gabriel is an angel, Dean,” Sam explained, trying and failing to get into a better position to face both his brother and Gabriel again. However, Dean seemed determined to keep his younger brother from doing that. For his own reassurance more than the 8 year olds. The younger Winchester really needed the older boy to see the situation for what it was though. They were safe and everything was okay!

“There is no such thing!” Dean shouted, turning his head to look at his brother for a moment. It scared the older Winchester how calm Sam was and serious he seemed to be about his assumption. Dean didn’t know what exactly Gabriel was, but somebody turning out to be something else than they had pretended to be, couldn’t be good! Not to mention, the adult had totally killed another guy back at that High School! Granted, the other guy had obviously been a bad guy, but still.

“Maybe you should show him your wings again,” Sam suggested. The younger Winchester acted like he wanted to duck under his brother’s right arm, but then turned left when Dean tried to prevent that from happening. The move left Sam in a position where he could at least look Gabriel in the eye.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, munchkin,” the archangel replied with a shrug, giving both kids a half-smile. Gabriel was trying not to look even the least bit threatening, but it was hard to look harmless to somebody who was already in the middle of a freak-out. At least, Sam looked like he thought they had won the jackpot. Hopefully, the younger Winchester’s mood would have a bit of an influence on his brother’s.

Apparently, Dean wasn’t ready to calm down yet. In fact, the older Winchester seemed more worked up, because of his brother’s easy acceptance of the situation.

“Stop it! Don’t act like… fuck! Stop acting like any of this is normal!” Dean yelled, gripping Sam’s shoulders hard to keep the eight year old from moving any closer to Gabriel. Knowing the naïve idiot, he might actually try to go and hug the ‘angel’.

“Gabriel, I have…” Castiel stated, suddenly standing just a few feet from his older brother. The seraph stopped speaking the moment he saw how both Winchesters jumped from his entrance. The angel had arrived at the school where he had been meant to meet Gabriel and the boys, just to find the place in uproar. It had taken a little while before Castiel gathered the information he had needed, but when he had finally learned that Zachariah was dead, the seraph had hurried back to the place he knew Gabriel would take the Winchesters to.

“You too?” Dean nearly shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at Castiel. Gabriel being some traitor who turned out not to be what he had pretended to be was one thing, but Cas was supposed to be the reliable adult the older Winchester could safely like! Hell, Dean had only sort of trusted Gabriel, because Cas had made it clear that being around the short adult was good for them!

“Of course he is. They are brothers,” Sam pointed out unhelpfully. The younger Winchester hoped that Dean would calm down a little after learning that Castiel was an angel as well. His older brother obviously had a good connection to the blue-eyed adult and that didn’t go away just like that.

“We gotta get out of here!” Dean decided, grabbing his brother’s hand forcefully. The older Winchester wasn’t even sure if they would be allowed to leave, but he had to try. If those people thought they could keep a Winchester from walking out on them without a fight, they were wrong!

“Dean, no!” Sam yelled at his older brother, trying to free his hand from Dean’s grip. The younger Winchester was tired of being ignored. He knew that raising his voice wasn’t the best way to be heard, but Dean didn’t leave him much of a choice, but to yell. “They are angels! That’s a good thing!”

The two boys stared each other down for a few tense moments after that, both of them unwilling to yield in the matter.

“You have my word that you can go wherever you want tomorrow,” Gabriel stated in a placating tone, “But you have to see that running around by yourselves in the middle of the night won’t do you much good.”

Dean’s eyes automatically moved to Castiel for a moment. The older Winchester didn’t like it, but he only found himself willing to consider the logic in Gabriel’s statement when the blue-eyed adult nodded his agreement. “Fine, but we’ll…”

“No!” Sam protested, when his older brother tried to drag him toward his room. The younger Winchester already hated the idea of having to leave the next day, but he hated the idea of spending the last few hours he had to talk to Gabriel holed up in Dean’s room even more. All because his older brother was unwilling to accept the truth.

“Sammy!” Dean replied in a warning tone. The entire situation was nearly unbearable for the older Winchester and his brother’s protest was grating on his last nerve.

“No,” Sam insisted, crossing his arms in front of his chest and taking a step away from his older brother demonstratively, “This is a safe place and they are good people and I don’t want to act like it’s not like that!”

If looks could have killed, the older Winchester would have committed fratricide that very moment. In the end, Dean didn’t say another word and only marched off toward his room, slamming the door shut behind him so hard that it would have been heard in the entire building, if Gabriel hadn’t soundproofed the apartment.

“Cassy, I think somebody, that means you, should try to talk to Dean-o,” Gabriel stated after silence had fallen over the room. It looked like Sam was torn between going after his brother, risking that he wouldn’t make it out of the room again before it was time to leave, and staying where he was. The archangel didn’t think that the younger Winchester should be the one to talk to Dean in any case. It had been obvious before that Dean wasn’t willing to consider his younger brother’s thoughts on the topic, but the twelve year old might be a little more open-minded with Castiel.

“I was under the impression that Dean wanted to be alone,” the seraph replied, frowning.

“He’s twelve years old, he’ll change his mind in a minute or two,” Gabriel said dismissively. The archangel wasn’t going to order his little brother to do anything, but sometimes Castiel needed a pointer or two. At least, it looked like the seraph understood what the archangel was getting at, because he walked after the older Winchester just a few moments later.

Honestly, Gabriel didn’t know what to tell Sam now that they were alone, but it looked like the archangel wasn’t the one who had to start the conversation, anyway. Castiel had barely left the room, when Sam wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s middle and hugged him tight.

“I thought you were dead,” the younger Winchester mumbled against the adult’s chest, sniffling. Now that everything was calmer, the events of the evening finally caught up with Sam and he couldn’t hold back the tears.

“I’m not that easy to keep down, munchkin,” Gabriel replied in a soothing tone, rubbing the kid’s back, while Sam fought to get his composure back. The archangel gave the younger Winchester some time to let his emotions out before he decided to help the boy calm down by distracting him.

“Let’s get comfortable,” Gabriel suggested, raising his hand to snap. A moment later the costumes were gone and replaced with their normal everyday wear. Sam was still staring at his plaid shirt and jeans disbelievingly when the archangel steered them both toward the couch to sit down.

“That was so cool,” the younger Winchester stated in an awed tone, moving closer to Gabriel so the adult could put his arm around him easily.

“Perks of being an angel,” the archangel grinned, winking at the kid. So, at least Sam had calmed down easily enough. Judging by the muffled sounds coming from Dean’s room, it didn’t sound like the older Winchester was making things easy for Castiel.

“Dean doesn’t pray,” Sam whispered after a few moments of silence, huddling against Gabriel’s side and looking up at the adult with unconcealed adoration in his eyes, “But I do. Every night.”

“I know, munchkin,” Gabriel replied, wrapping his arm around the kid a little tighter. In the past week, the archangel couldn’t have helped noticing the prayers coming from Sam’s room every night, if he had tried. Being this close to the one praying, there had been no ignoring it, like Gabriel usually did.

“Sometimes I pray to Gabriel,” Sam admitted, watching the angel closely for his reaction. The younger Winchester wasn’t quite sure, if there was more than one angel that went by the name Gabriel. He also didn’t know if all of them would feel like they were being addressed by a prayer to the archangel. “Pastor Jim told me that Gabriel is the archangel of consolation and mercy and that people pray to him when they feel downhearted or need purification.”

“Guess I’m not quite what you pictured,” the archangel chuckled, trying to mask how Sam’s words had made him a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t only that the munchkin had been praying to him personally for years without Gabriel ever listening, though that alone would have been bad enough. It was much more about Sam – and not only Sam – seeing him in a much more positive light than he deserved and had ever deserved.

“No,” the younger Winchester admitted, leaning his head against the archangel’s shoulder to hide just how deep his blush had gotten, “You’re better.”

Gabriel huffed out a laugh. “Thanks for the ego boost, kiddo.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dean had started to yank the plastic weapons from his clothes the moment the door had closed behind him. One piece after another hit the wall with a satisfying bang. However, the satisfaction didn’t last and Dean was quickly running out of things to throw.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel stated with a hint of uncertainty in his voice. The angel knew that the boy was upset, but he didn’t know what to do to fix it. Castiel was a soldier, giving emotional support hadn’t been among the things drilled into him in heaven. It seemed like Dean normally reacted positively to the seraph’s presence, but he wasn’t sure how he actually accomplished it.

“Leave me alone!” Dean yelled, cursing himself for not barricading the door when he had had the chance. Then again, Sam might have changed his mind and the older Winchester wouldn’t have wanted to prevent his younger brother from coming after him.

“I understand that this must be confusing for you,” Castiel tried to find fitting words for the occasion, but he wasn’t sure something like that even existed to begin with. There were times being a celestial cosmic entity made existence a whole lot easier. Being human was difficult.

“Duh, you think?” Dean shot back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Calling everything that had happened confusing was the understatement of the century. Then again, Castiel was good at making understatements. Thinking about it, Dean should have realized that the guy was a total alien much earlier.

“I am not very good at this,” Castiel admitted, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

The older Winchester had bunched up the coat he had been wearing while the angel had been speaking. Dean threw it on the floor disdainfully and stomped up to Castiel, raising to his full height to stare daggers at the adult.

“Oh yeah? Just tell me one thing, Cas,” Dean demanded, clearly working himself up as he spoke, “Where were you when mom died?”

Mary Winchester had believed in angels. She had prayed to them and told her children about them, but then she had been taken from her family just like that. Dean had decided that he didn’t believe in angels early on. If they did exist, one of them would have done something about this injustice. Of course, not believing in angels seemed a little stupid now, but the older Winchester didn’t have to like them!

“I only set foot on this planet one year ago,” Castiel answered truthfully. The angel knew that it wasn’t the answer his charge was looking for, but it was the best the seraph could give him that moment.

“What about everybody else?” Dean asked, pressing his lips into a thin line to keep his lower lip from wobbling. The older Winchester wanted to be angry and he wanted to vent much more than he wanted actual answers. Dean didn’t expect to get any answers that would be any helpful, anyway.

“We were not allowed to interact with humans until recently,” Castiel explained, trying with all his might to figure out what to do about the situation he was in. Gabriel seemed to deal with Sam so effortlessly, why couldn’t the seraph simply know what to do to make Dean feel better?

“Why now? Why not when…?” the older Winchester started yelling again before his voice broke. The twelve year old had closed the gap between himself and Castiel then started hitting the angel’s chest with his fists before he had made the conscious decision to do so.

“You could have saved her!” Dean sobbed, grabbing Cas’ trench coat.

“I am sorry,” Castiel said quietly, instinctively wrapping his arms around the older Winchester. It wasn’t surprising that Dean struggled against the hold the seraph had on him, but Castiel surprised himself when he didn’t let go. Instead the angel kept hugging the older Winchester until the twelve year old gave up the fight and just cried into Castiel’s shirt.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Dean hugged back.


	20. Chapter 20

**20**

 

It was past midnight before Sam had fallen asleep. Knowing what the younger Winchester’s first reaction to being turned back into an adult would most likely be, Gabriel wished that the kid hadn’t passed out from exhaustion, still sitting on the couch next to the archangel. As things were, Sam’s head was resting in Gabriel’s lap and he was sleeping peacefully. As soon as the younger Winchester was 18 years older again, he wouldn’t like the sleeping arrangement, that was for sure. Then again, both Winchesters would throw a fit anyway, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

It was shortly after six in the morning when, Gabriel felt an accumulation of energy signaling the end of the spell the Winchesters were under. The archangel had known that this moment had to come, but that didn’t make it any easier. The two Weechesters had been Gabriel’s boys for a week and he had known that they only had that one week early on, but apparently a part of the archangel hadn’t gotten the message that it was only temporary.

“Good bye, munchkin,” Gabriel whispered around the lump in his throat, petting the younger Winchester’s hair.

The transformation only took a second and wasn’t all that spectacular. Since Sam’s clothes had once more changed with him and the twenty-six year old had the same innocent and peaceful expression on his face as his eight year old self had had, the difference was mostly in the size of the man who lay curled up on Gabriel’s couch.

The archangel contemplated snapping up a camera with autotimer, – how often was he going to get the chance to get a picture of Sam Winchester’s head resting on his lap? – but decided against it. A fairly big part of Gabriel was trying to come to terms with the loss of his two prepubescent charges, so the archangel didn’t feel like playing pranks that very moment.

Sam awoke with a start, feeling disoriented, like he had just had the longest and most confusing dream ever. When the younger Winchester’s eyes darted around the room a sense of dread set in immediately. Sam sat up so quickly that he made himself dizzy in the process. Getting the first good look of the man now sitting next to him did nothing to help his head stop spinning, either.

The younger Winchester stood up to put some space between himself and the archangel a moment later. He knew that Gabriel hadn’t been the one who was responsible for everything that had happened. At least, the archangel hadn’t been the one who had turned them into children in the first place. Gabriel was responsible for a lot of other things they had done that week, but Sam could hardly be mad at the angel for taking care of them and giving them a good time. Not that it made any sense that Gabriel had done any of that to begin with.

“You should get your stuff before Dean-o wakes up. I have a feeling like he’ll want to leave as quickly as possible,” the archangel finally broke the silence between them.

Sam nodded absentmindedly, taking the first two steps toward the room that had been his for nearly a week before he stopped to once more look at the archangel. There were a lot of things the younger Winchester wanted to say or do, but a lot of his impulses were in conflict with each other. He had a hard time choosing what he had to get out.

A fairly big part of Sam wanted to thank Gabriel for everything he had done for them. There was no use denying that the younger Winchester had appreciated all the time and effort the archangel had put into entertaining them and caring for them. Hell, even knowing that they were going to leave as soon as Dean woke up and realized what had happened, actually hurt pretty badly. Unfortunately, another part of Sam wanted to yell at Gabriel and possibly punch him for making him feel like that.

“Gabriel,” the younger Winchester said quietly after a few long moments of silence, “Thank you.”

In the end, it wasn’t the archangel’s fault that he had reawakened all these old feelings of loss Sam dealt with throughout most of his childhood. It wasn’t Gabriel’s fault that the younger Winchester had always hated the moment when they had to give up another temporary home, that had only just started to feel right. If anything, it was the archangel’s fault that he had done nothing to discourage the little crush Sam’s eight year old self had developed on him, but the younger Winchester wasn’t willing to touch that topic with a ten foot pole. If Sam could help it, he would never think of it again, in fact.

Gabriel looked at the younger Winchester surprised, before a grin spread over his face. “My pleasure, Sambo.”

The amicable moment between the two men was over the moment Dean started yelling loud enough for everyone in the apartment to hear. “You left us with the fucking Trickster?”

Sam winced and hurried to get his duffle bag out of his room before his older brother was done ranting at Castiel. The younger Winchester wondered, if the angel already regretted his decision to stick around. Knowing Castiel, he was probably taking Dean’s anger much better than anybody else would have, though.

“Sam!” the older Winchester called for his brother in a tone that was louder than strictly necessary, “We’re leaving. Now!”

Dean didn’t wait for Sam’s reaction and only took the time to give Gabriel the stink-eye before he made his way to the exit. To tell the truth, the older Winchester’s biggest fear that moment was that his brother might not follow him, like he had the previous evening. They all knew that Sam didn’t always have the best grasp on who his loyalty should lie with. In this case though, Dean wouldn’t have had to worry.

Sam, Dean and Castiel were all standing in front of the Impala before the older Winchester spoke again.

“You left us with Gabriel, seriously?” Dean asked with a deep sigh, sounding nowhere near as upset as he had the last time he had brought the topic up, however. Not even the older Winchester could argue that Castiel’s plan had worked out for them. They were safe and back to their usual selves, only marginally more traumatized than they had been a week ago.

“It seemed like the wisest thing to do at the time,” Castiel explained, his blue eyes fixing Dean’s green ones as if the seraph was daring the human to object in any way. The decision to get Gabriel involved in the matter was something Castiel was willing to stand behind, no matter what the older Winchester thought about it.

“Whatever, dude,” Dean replied, looking horrified as soon as he realized what he had just said. It had taken long enough to break the habit of using that petulant ‘whatever’ as soon as he was out of arguments, the first time around and now the older Winchester had to do it all over again!

The corners of Sam’s mouth were still twitching when Castiel took his leave. The younger Winchester was trying not to show his amusement too much, because his older brother wouldn’t react too positively to it. Speaking of things Dean wouldn’t react too positively to…

The older Winchester got deadly quiet for a moment when he opened the Impala’s door and tried to get into the driver’s seat just to find that it had been readjusted for someone much shorter than Dean. The question wasn’t if Dean was going to explode, it was how fast and how loudly.

“Son of a bitch!”

 

* * *

 

 

“Bobby,” Dean called out as soon as the brothers had entered the older hunter’s house, “You won’t believe…”

The older Winchester didn’t get to the end of his statement before his eyes fell on a sandy-haired man, sitting cross legged on the carpet in front of Bobby’s desk. It wasn’t the first time that Sam and Dean saw a complete stranger around the older hunter’s house, but in this case the stranger was somebody they both had in fact met before.

“You!” Dean growled, glaring daggers at the angel.

Tarot had been examining a broken clock the Bobby had given to him, when the Winchesters had made their entrance. The angel flinched violently, moving to stand behind the older hunter’s wheelchair as quickly as his shaking limbs would allow him and making himself as small as he possibly could.

“Bobby?” Sam asked in a confused tone, throwing side glances toward the angel, which only seemed to make him even more nervous.

“Calm down, feathers,” Bobby commanded in a gruff tone, “Go to the kitchen and make yourself useful. Two pots of coffee should do.”

Tarot nodded jerkily, straightening his posture a little before he more or less fled into the kitchen. Brewing coffee had been one of the first things the hunter had taught him and the angel took comfort in knowing that there was something useful he could do.

“What the hell was that?” Dean demanded to know, as soon as Tarot had left the room. The older Winchester wasn’t sure if it was reassuring that Bobby didn’t seem to think of the angel as a threat or if it was worrying. Dean wanted to know the story behind all of this, either way.

“While you two were having a long sleepover with the trickster, your friend Cas decided that I could use a roommate,” the older hunter answered in a sarcastic tone. Judging by the Winchesters’ reactions, they hadn’t known anything about this beforehand, so Bobby decided to give them a little more information. “Apparently, it was this or putting him down.”

“’Cause that would have been so bad,” Dean snorted, throwing a side glance toward the kitchen, “He was the one who started all this! How do we even know that he won’t go and sell us out to the angels again?”

There probably was nothing Michael would like better, but to get the kind of inside information on them that someone staying at Bobby’s could give him. There was no chance of keeping everything that might be relevant away from Tarot, if he was going to live here. Hell, the angel probably already knew way too much and the Winchesters hadn’t even been around the past few days!

“I ordered him not to do anything like that,” Bobby explained, groaning when Sam and Dean looked at him like he had gone crazy. Those two were far too quick to jump to conclusions at times! “Castiel bound Tarot to me. He has to follow any order I give him, to the letter.”

“He what?” Sam asked incredulously. What Bobby had just described sounded an awful lot like slavery to the younger Winchester, even if the older hunter would never abuse the power he had been given. Then again, Sam couldn’t say that he had a better idea of how to handle the situation, without putting them all in danger.

“Do you think I’m happy about it?” Bobby countered, sighing deeply. The older hunter had realized very quickly that he literally could order Tarot to do anything and the seraph would at least attempt it. Hell, if Bobby told the angel to calm down, it looked like he automatically obeyed the command, even if he had absolutely no logical reason to! However, as long as the older hunter didn’t take back his order to not relay any information the angel learned in the time with them to anybody else, Tarot was unable to betray them. There was at least that one upside to this entire mess. If Bobby ever decided to sell the boys out, they were screwed six ways to Sunday, anyway.

“So, you could tell the guy to jump off a cliff and he’d do it?” Dean grinned slightly morbidly, looking toward the kitchen once more. Chances were that the angel could hear them talk, but the older Winchester didn’t feel like playing best buddies with this new – and from his perspective, unwanted – addition to the household, anyway.

“Dean,” Sam replied in a reprimanding tone. Things like what his brother had just brought up were exactly why the younger Winchester was uncomfortable with the concept of the angel being bound to Bobby. At least, it looked like the older hunter shared that feeling.

“Hypothetical question, purely hypothetical,” Dean shrugged. It wasn’t like jumping off a cliff would hurt an angel all that much, anyway. At least, the older Winchester assumed that Castiel could shrug a fall like that off without much damage, if any, done.

Bobby shook his head, but didn’t comment. The older hunter knew that he’d have to tell Sam and Dean the entire story – as far as Bobby knew it – sooner rather than later, but there’d be a better time for that. A time when Tarot wasn’t standing next to Bobby’s desk with a pot of freshly brewed coffee and three cups, for example.

The older Winchester shook his head and grabbed his duffle bag to get his stuff into the guest room. The entire scene was too weird for Dean’s liking, especially after they had only just been turned back into adults and away from the trickster’s apartment. The sooner all this was nothing more than a distant memory, the better.

Sam took a seat and poured himself a cup of coffee. To tell the truth, the younger Winchester was dying to ask a million questions and to tell Bobby about the past week, but that didn’t feel right when there was an angel sitting on the floor, tinkering with some old clock. At least, it looked like Tarot had a hobby of sorts. Sam doubted that Bobby had ordered the angel to repair any clocks, anyway.

“That’s really good coffee,” the younger Winchester commented lamely after he had taken the first sip. Tarot looked up for a second and beamed at Sam like he had just paid him the best compliment ever, before the angel quickly brought his full attention back to the clock in his lap. The younger Winchester began to regret not going upstairs with Dean, even if his older brother had been moody ever since they had left Gabriel’s.

In the meantime, Dean rummaged around in his duffle bag to find a clean shirt and jeans. The older Winchester had gone to sleep the previous evening still wearing parts of his Halloween costume. The black pants and shirt had grown bigger with Dean when the spell had ended, but he wasn’t too keen on wearing them any longer, anyway. They were infested with memories of a week he wanted to forget.

When the older Winchester pulled one of his plaid shirts from the bag, the homerun ball he had caught in the first days they had spent with Gabriel fell out and rolled toward Dean’s feet. For a moment, the older Winchester wanted to just take the damn thing and throw it out of the window, but when he bowed down to pick it up, he found that he couldn’t do that. Dean smiled slightly to himself and burrowed the baseball deep in his duffle bag.

It was bad enough that Sam would always have that pink hair incident to hold against his older brother, he really didn’t need to know that Dean hadn’t hated everything about the time they had spent with Gabriel.


	21. Chapter 21

**Epilogue**

 

“Hello, brother,” Gabriel stated in a calm tone that was in stark contrast to the panicked reaction the other angel displayed at the archangel’s sudden appearance. Not that Gabriel had expected that particular brother to be overjoyed to see him again after a couple millennia.

“None of that now, Metatron,” the archangel commented casually when the other angel tried to flee. “I’m just here for a little talk between brothers.”

A snap of Gabriel’s fingers later, Metatron found himself completely unable to move. The archangel had to admit that he had never been too fond of their father’s secretary, but he hadn’t simply decided to be cruel either. If Gabriel had been in his brother’s position, he would have resorted to the dirtiest tricks he was capable of to get away, after all. The sooner Metatron fully realized that there was no getting away, the sooner they could have a serious and hopefully productive talk.

“So, you finally got me,” Metatron replied, trying and failing to mask just how nervous the archangel’s appearance made him. To tell the truth, the angel was a little surprised that it was Gabriel of all people who had finally located him. To be more precise, he was surprised that one of the archangels had come to collect him personally.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’ve only been looking for about a week,” Gabriel retorted, pulling a lollipop out of the pocket of his jacket and unwrapping it. The archangel wasn’t sure, if his older brothers had ever given up their search for Metatron, but it seemed likely that it hadn’t been somewhere on top of the list of priorities for quite some time.

“How did you find me?” the seraph asked with a groan. It didn’t look like Gabriel would go smite-happy in the next few seconds, so Metatron might at least find out what the shortcomings of his hiding place had been. The angel belatedly realized that he had taken a bit of a disrespectful tone with the archangel, so he quickly added in the most respectful tone he could muster up, “Inquiring minds would like to know.”

“It looks like we have a mutual friend,” Gabriel answered, his tone giving away that he was amused by his brother’s, clearly forced display of respect. The archangel wasn’t sure if his brother had enough of a backbone to fake his respect as badly as he had, or if Metatron just was a bad actor, but it had been funny to watch, anyway. “Coyote thinks you’re amusing, by the way.”

Metatron didn’t have anything to say to that. It was a well known fact that angels didn’t get along with the pagan gods, so the seraph wouldn’t have thought that Coyote would have ratted him out to an angel. Apparently, that had been a mistake.

“In case you haven’t gotten the news,” Gabriel said casually, waving his lollipop in front of his brother’s face while he was speaking, “I’m not exactly with heaven anymore.”

For all the archangel knew, Metatron had been rather sheltered for a long time. The various protections around the place were designed to keep all things heavenly out, which Gabriel had managed to bypass, by using his not exactly heavenly side. Chances were the seraph wasn’t even listening to angel radio anymore.

“Hell isn’t exactly my thing, either,” Gabriel went on talking, “It’s too bad that this entire pesky Apocalypse was only designed for those two sides.”

The archangel was walking around his trapped brother in a big circle, allowing Metatron to move his head, so he could follow Gabriel’s movements. The room was filled with books, floor to ceiling. The archangel couldn’t help thinking that his younger brother and Sam Winchester probably had about the same idea of what their perfect room had to look like. The thought of Sammy getting his geek on with all the books Metatron had collected made Gabriel smile.

“What do you want?” the seraph asked warily. At least, it didn’t sound like the archangel was going to hand him over to heaven. However, there had do be a gigantic catch. Gabriel obviously wanted something, otherwise he wouldn’t have put any kind of work into finding him, Metatron was sure. Not to mention that the archangel was holding him in place, taking away every chance of escape the seraph might have had, and he surely had had a reason to do that.

“Isn’t it obvious? Information,” Gabriel explained, standing in front of his brother to look him directly in the eyes once more. “If anybody knows more about those little loopholes daddy liked to put into all his big plans, just in case he changed his mind, than I do, it’s you.”

“What’s in it for me?” Metatron wanted to know, eyeing the archangel his voice took on a bit of a petulant note. If the seraph was going to share a few of his most precious secrets with the archangel, there’d better be something in it for him. That Metatron knew a couple of things even the archangels didn’t, was the reason why he had gone into hiding in the first place, but it was also one of the little things the seraph could pride himself with. Knowledge was power, after all.

“Other than me not being really pissed off?” Gabriel retorted in a sickeningly sweet tone, before his voice turned completely serious, “Revenge.”

The archangel could tell the exact moment when he had won his brother over. Revenge was a great motivator for a lot of things, very few of them good, but Gabriel knew how to take this into the right direction. Metatron getting some sort of satisfaction out of it that was a side-effect he could live with.

“Right now we want the same thing, Metatron,” Gabriel stated, snapping his fingers to allow his brother to move again, “No more archangels.”


End file.
